VIVALDI Study (2020-2023)

The VIVALDI study was a national project launched to investigate COVID-19 infections in care homes, led by IHI's Professor Laura Shallcross MBE.

Vivaldi study logotype

The Problem

Care home residents and people who work in care homes have higher rates of infection compared to the general population. During the pandemic, care home residents were more likely to be admitted to hospital or to die from COVID-19. Early on during the pandemic, we did not know how many people living and working in care homes were infected with COVID-19, or how many had been infected in the past. This information was essential to work out how to protect care home staff and residents from infection. 

The Research

In June 2020, UCL researchers set up a national research study called “VIVALDI” which was the largest COVID-19 care home research study in England. We worked with a number of large and small independent care home chains across England including Four Seasons Healthcare, HC-One, The Orders of St John, and the UK Health Security Agency. The aim of the study was to find out how many care home staff and residents had been infected with COVID-19 and how effective vaccines were against infection, to inform decisions around the best approach to COVID-19 testing.
Between June 2020 and April 2022, we tested around 6000 staff and residents across approximately 220 care homes in England and estimated the proportion who had been infected with COVID-19 in the past and had antibodies. These tests were repeated over time to learn how COVID-19 spreads in care homes and how long the antibody response to infection and to vaccination lasts and whether these helped to prevent re-infection with the virus. The study was subsequently extended and a further two or three rounds of antibody testing are planned in 60 care homes between April 2022 and March 2023. By linking the antibody results to national data on PCR testing, vaccination, hospital admissions, and deaths, from approximately 300 care homes with about 40,000 staff and residents, we could find out how many people had been vaccinated, how many people had been infected and how many were admitted to hospital or die following COVID-19 infection. This allowed us to estimate the vaccine efficacy against infection and against severe outcomes like hospitalisation and/or death and how this changes over time.

hands resting on open book

In collaboration with researchers at the University of Birmingham, we were able to perform more in-depth tests that tell us about the different components of the immune response to COVID-19 and to vaccination and how these changed over time. We also performed in-depth interviews with several care home staff to understand how the pandemic affected working conditions and measures to prevent infections in care homes in collaboration with the CATCH-19 study.

Our results were used to inform national policy on COVID-19 testing and vaccination to prevent infections in care homes.

 

Timeline

The study ran between June 2020 and 31 March 2023.

Funder

UK Health Security Agency

UCL Staff

  • Professor Laura Shallcross, Institute of Health Informatics
  • Professor Andrew Hayward, Institute of Epidemiology & Health Care
  • Dr Andrew Copas, Institute for Global Health
  • Dr Maria Krutikov, Institute of Health Informatics
  • Dr Oliver Stirrup, Institute for Global Health
  • Miss Borscha Azmi, Institute of Health Informatics 
  • Dr Tom Palmer, Institute for Global Health
  • Dr Gillian Forbes, Centre for Behaviour Change
  • Dr Fabiana Lorencatto, Centre for Behaviour Change

Wider Network

  • Professor Paul Moss, University of Birmingham
  • Dr Rachel Bruton, University of Birmingham
  • Mr James Robson, Four Seasons Healthcare
  • Dr Susan Hopkins, Public Health England
  • Professor Jeremy Farrar, Wellcome Trust
  • Dr Gokhan Tut, University of Birmingham
  • Professor Markus Ralser, Francis Crick Institute 

Other Information and Contact