Rutgers Seeks Children, Those Under 25 For Long COVID Study

NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ — Rutgers University is taking part in a study, which will last four years, of young adults and children who have "long COVID."

To that end, Rutgers is looking for children and young adults (under 25) who have long COVID. This is part of a four-year National Institutes of Health study that will enroll 2,000 children and young adults total.

The study is seeking to define long COVID — a term used to describe lingering COVID-19 symptoms — in children, including its evolution and how often it occurs.

Rutgers specifically is seeking 150 participants from New Jersey. The total NIH national recruitment goal is 20,000 participants.

In the study’s first phase, participants will provide blood and saliva samples and complete an at-home questionnaire. Qualifying participants will continue to the second phase, which involves an in-depth evaluation that will include bloodwork, an electrocardiogram and lung-function testing at the Pediatric Clinical Research Center at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick. Some participants may be selected for even more in-depth study, including brain imaging, cognitive testing and echocardiograms.

Children and adolescents are particularly susceptible to long-term COVID-19 symptoms, including brain fog, loss of stamina, pain, headaches, fatigue, anxiety, depression, fever, cough and sleep problems.

For more information and to express interest in participating in the study, fill out the survey below: https://redcap.link/uph1ntu7

“We need to think about long COVID as the onset of a new chronic disease of childhood,” said Dr. Lawrence Kleinman, the lead investigator for the Collaborative Long-term study of Outcomes of COVID-19 in Kids (CLOCK) consortium at Rutgers and a professor and vice chair in the department of pediatrics at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.

“Impacts may be readily apparent and observable, latent in a way that emerges later or only apparent at times of emotional or physical stress.”

The study is part of a $30 million grant Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School received as part of the NIH-funded Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery (RECOVER) initiative to lead a national collaboration to study long-term and delayed impacts of COVID-19 in children.