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Even as the condition affects her daily life, this researcher is putting patients at the centre of long-COVID research.
As a graduate student, Lisa McCorkell studied how to take on some of the biggest challenges in social policy, including food poverty and social safety nets. But there was one subject she steered clear of: health care. "I felt like it was too complicated," she says. "I was trying to stay away from that."
These days, she spends much of her time enmeshed in health-care policy. After a mild bout of COVID-19 in 2020, she contracted a debilitating case of long COVID, which continues to affect her daily life. Later that year, she and four other women with the condition founded the Patient-Led Research Collaborative, a group of researchers who conduct and inform studies into the condition.
This year, even as the pandemic slips off the agenda in many countries, the collaborative has continued to grow its membership and its impact. It has introduced a US$4.8-million fund for research projects, with grantees...