The American Board of Family Medicine (ABFM) and the Stanford Center for Population Health Sciences (PHS) have entered into a contract with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to apply a new initiative to monitor social inequalities in COVID-19 and assess the prevalence and severity of long-term symptoms of COVID-19.

While numerous studies are starting to report the long-term complications from COVID-19 illness, few have included diverse populations from primary care practices or have the ability to address health disparities. This contract utilizes electronic health record data from millions of Americans and will provide insight into the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic that can be applied to clinical practice to improve outcomes for patients and their families. Many rural areas have limited access to specialists, so more responsibility falls on primary care to identify and manage COVID-19 and long-term COVID-19.

“This project brings together three groups—the CDC, ABFM, and Stanford PHS—with complementary knowledge in a project that is focused on understanding social inequalities in COVID-19 incidence and long-term complications, using new data that includes millions of people not captured through other health data sources,” said David Rehkopf, Associate Professor and Director of the Stanford PHS. “We are honored to be able to work with the CDC to support their mission of understanding the burden of COVID-19 in the population, in particular among groups underrepresented in other data sources.”

“The clinicians of the PRIME Registry care for a diverse, national swath of the United States,” adds Dr. Bob Phillips, Executive Director of ABFM’s Center for Professionalism & Value in Health Care. “The reach of these practices into small and rural communities make them an important window for understanding the course of a pandemic through America. We anticipate that this contract with CDC will enable our understanding of health and health care in primary care, where most people go for care.”