Building Capacity for a Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Agenda on Racial and Sex-Specific Disparities in Cardiovascular Disease in COVID-19

Background: African Americans (AA) have been disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 disease, experiencing 30 to 60 percent of the deaths, while only making up 13 percent of the US population. Early data suggest that pregnant women may experience worse outcomes with severe coronavirus infection. There is an urgent need to incorporate AA and female perspectives into the design of research on the cardiovascular disease (CVD) complications related to COVID-19. Proposed Solution: The goal of this project is to incorporate perspectives of AA and female patients in developing research priorities and an agenda related to COVID-19. The project will use narrative medicine principles to build a strong patient-centered narrative. These narratives will be used to identify questions suitable for research using the American Heart Association COVID-19 CVD Quality Improvement Registry. The project will establish a COVID-19 research advisory council at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Objectives: The project team's objectives include: Developing a strong research-ready partnership capable of executing PCOR Creation of a research agenda and a set of priorities on racial/sex-specific CVD disparities in COVID-19 that reflect the perspectives of African Americans and women. The long-term objective is creation of a set of research questions suitable for clinical research using the AHA Registry.