Student & Post-Doc Awards

Pandemic and Autoimmunity: Impact of COVID-19 on the Development and Progression of Autoimmune Diseases in Children, a project from the Pediatric Outcomes Improvement through Coordination of Research Networks

 
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Participating Sites and Research Team

Charles-Antoine Guay
Dr. Elodie Portales-Casamar
Dr. Marianne Rufiange
Dr. Olivier Drouin
Dr. Nadia Roumeliotis
Dr. Caroline Quach-Thanh

British Columbia
BC Children’s Hospital (Vancouver)

Alberta
Alberta Children’s Hospital (Calgary)
Stollery Children’s Hospital (Edmonton)

Saskatchewan
Jim Pattison Children’s Hospital (Saskatoon)

Manitoba
The Children’s Hospital of Winnipeg (Winnipeg)

Ontario
Children's Hospital London Health Sciences Centre (London)
McMaster Children’s Hospital (Hamilton)
The Hospital for Sick Children (Toronto)
Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (Ottawa)
Kingston Health Sciences Centre (Kingston)

Quebec
CHU Sainte-Justine (Montreal)
Montreal Children’s Hospital
CHU de Sherbrooke (Sherbrooke)
CHU de Quebec l‘Universite de Laval (Quebec City)

Nova Scotia
IWK Health Centre (Halifax)

Newfoundland
Janeway Children’s Health and Rehabilitation Centre (St. John’s)

What Do We Want To Know?

  1. Trends in autoimmune disease in children before and after the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada

  2. The association between COVID-19 in children and teens in Canada and the risk of developing an autoimmune disease.

  3. The risk of developing an autoimmune disease observed after other symptomatic respiratory infections.

  4. The potential protective role of vaccination.

How Are We Doing It?

  • A Canadian population-based longitudinal study using health administrative data

    • To assess trends in autoimmune diseases in Canadian children at the population level.

  • A longitudinal cohort analysis using data from a multicenter prospective cohort study (POPCORN COVID cohort study) linked to Canadian health administrative data

    • To evaluate the association between laboratory-confirmed symptomatic COVID-19 infection and the risk of developing a new autoimmune disease, and the potential protective role of vaccination.

When Will I Be Needed?

We will use already collected data from the POPCORN COVID-19 cohort study.

How Is The Study Going?

As of March 4th, 2026, the project is progressing well and remains on schedule. We have finalized the study protocol and successfully obtained access to Quebec health administrative data. We are currently updating the Canadian health administrative data to ensure it is complete and aligned with the study objectives related to autoimmune diseases. At the same time, we are preparing the data linkage process between the POPCORN cohort and health administrative databases, which will be completed before submitting the project to the ethics committee. Overall, the project is advancing steadily into the data preparation and data analysis phases. 

Who Can Participate?

The study relies on secondary data and health administrative data and does not involve patient recruitment.

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