Association of COVID-19 vaccination with risks of hospitalization due to cardiovascular and other diseases: A study using data from the UK Biobank

ObjectivesTo explore whether COVID-19 vaccination protects against hospital admission by preventing infections and severe disease.MethodsWe leveraged the UK-Biobank(UKBB) and studied associations of COVID-19 vaccination (BioNTech-BNT162b2 or Oxford-AstraZeneca-ChAdOx1) with hospitalizations from cardiovascular and other selected diseases(N=393,544; median follow-up=54 days among vaccinated). Multivariable Cox, Poisson regression, propensity score matching(PSM) and inverse probability treatment weighting(IPTW) analyses were performed. We also performed adjustment using prescription-time distribution matching(PTDM) and prior-event rate ratio(PERR).ResultsWe observed that COVID-19 vaccination(at least one dose), when compared to no vaccination, was associated with reduced short-term risks of hospitalizations from stroke(hazard ratioHR=0.178, 95%CI:0.127-0.250,P=1.50e-23), venous thromboembolism(VTE) (HR=0.426,CI:0.270-0.673,P=2.51e-4), dementia (HR=0.114,CI:0.060-0.216;P=2.24e-11), non-COVID-19 pneumonia(NCP) (HR=0.108,CI:0.080-0.145;P=2.20e-49), coronary artery disease(CAD) (HR=0.563,CI:0.416-0.762;P=2.05e-4), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease(COPD) (HR=0.212,CI:0.126-0.357;P=4.92e-9), type-2 diabetes(T2DM) (HR=0.216,CI:0.096-0.486,P=2.12e-4), heart failure (HR=0.174,CI:0.118-0.256,P=1.34e-18) and renal failure (HR=0.415,CI:0.255- 0.677,P=4.19e-4), based on standard Cox regression models. Among the above results, reduced hospitalizations for stroke, heart failure, NCP and dementia were consistently observed across regression, PSM/IPTW, PTDM, and PERR. The results for 2-dose vaccination were similar.ConclusionsTaken together, this study provides further support to the safety and benefits of COVID-19 vaccination, and such benefits may extend beyond reduction of infection risk or severity per se. However, causal relationship cannot be concluded and further studies are required.