The Experience of Long COVID Among American Indian Individuals in Three Great Plains Communities

Long COVID may impact populations differently. In July 2023, at the direction of a community advisory board, we administered a cross-sectional survey to explore attitudes and experiences of long COVID among members of three American Indian Reservation communities in the Great Plains. Just over half of the 843 respondents considered long COVID to be an important issue in their community, an attitude that was associated with younger age, identifying as male, having more than a high school education, full-time employment, living with children, and living on the Reservation. Of survey respondents who reported having had COVID-19, 40% reported ongoing symptoms at the time of the survey. Having ongoing symptoms was associated with identifying as female, living alone with children, and having had long COVID-19 symptoms during the initial infection. To explore ongoing symptoms, we performed a factor analysis that identified three symptom clusters with distinct sociodemographic associations. The results suggest that health and workforce sequelae of COVID-19 infections may present challenges for the surveyed communities and that ongoing symptoms after COVID-19 infection were common.