SynthesisJournal of global health2023
Differential COVID-19 infection rates in children, adults, and elderly: Systematic review and meta-analysis of 38 pre-vaccination national seroprevalence studies.
Synthesis in Journal of global health, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Age-stratified infection fatality rate of COVID-19 in the non-elderly population.Environmental research · 2023Pooled it
- Agreement between seroprevalence- and model-based estimates of COVID-19 burden.Global health action · 2026Article
- Intellectual and Physical Disability and Risk of COVID-19 Infection, Hospitalisation, and Mortality: A National Cohort of 3.7 Million Adults in Scotland.Journal of epidemiology and global health · 2026Article
- Nationwide estimates of SARS-CoV-2 infection fatality rates and numbers needed to vaccinate for COVID-19 vaccines in 2024 in Austria.European journal of clinical investigation · 2026Article
- Assessment of SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibody persistence using LFIC: a prevalence study after booster doses.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Article
- Educational intervention for the main caregiver of primiparous women to promote breastfeeding and the association between prolactin and nutritional parameters.Journal of global health · 2023Observational
- Estimates of COVID-19 deaths in Mainland China after abandoning zero COVID policy.European journal of clinical investigation · 2023Article
- Asymptomatic and Mild SARS-CoV-2 Infections in a Hungarian Outpatient Cohort in the First Year of the COVID-19 Pandemic.Tropical medicine and infectious disease · 2023Article
- Incidence, Risk, and Severity of SARS-CoV-2 Reinfections in Children and Adolescents Between March 2020 and July 2022 in Serbia.JAMA network open · 2023Article
- Estimates of COVID-19 deaths in Mainland China after abandoning zero COVID policy.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2023Article
- Prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infection and impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in avocado farmworkers from Mexico.Frontiers in public health · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Debate exists about whether extra protection of elderly and other vulnerable individuals is feasible in COVID-19. We aimed to assess the relative infection rates in the elderly vs the non-elderly and, secondarily, in children vs adults. Methods: We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of seroprevalence studies conducted in the pre-vaccination era. We identified representative national studies without high risk of bias through SeroTracker and PubMed searches (last updated May 17, 2022). We noted seroprevalence estimates for children, non-elderly adults, and elderly adults, using cut-offs of 20 and 60 years (or as close to these ages, if they were unavailable) and compared them between different age groups. Results: We included 38 national seroprevalence studies from 36 different countries comprising 826 963 participants. Twenty-six of these studies also included pediatric populations and twenty-five were from high-income countries. The median ratio of seroprevalence in elderly vs non-elderly adults (or non-elderly in general, if pediatric and adult population data were not offered separately) was 0.90-0.95 in different analyses, with large variability across studies. In five studies (all in high-income countries), we observed significant protection of the elderly with a ratio of <0.40, with a median of 0.83 in high-income countries and 1.02 elsewhere. The median ratio of seroprevalence in children vs adults was 0.89 and only one study showed a significant ratio of <0.40. The main limitation of our study is the inaccuracies and biases in seroprevalence studies. Conclusions: Precision shielding of elderly community-dwelling populations before the availability of vaccines was indicated in some high-income countries, but most countries failed to achieve any substantial focused protection. Registration: Open Science Framework (available at: https://osf.io/xvupr).
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