# Pediatric COVID-19 Severity Dashboard During Delta Variant Circulation

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO DENVER · 2021 · $247,165

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
Pediatric COVID-19 is a major national and global public health problem. Pediatric COVID-19 cases have been
increasing since mid-July 2021, coincident with the predominance of the Delta variant. During most of the
pandemic, children have typically experienced milder COVID-19 illness severity than adults. However,
SARS-CoV-2 causes two types of severe pediatric disease: acute COVID-19 and multisystem inflammatory
syndrome in children (MIS-C). Both acute COVID-19 and MIS-C can cause organ dysfunction and death.
Recently, individual pediatric health systems have reported increasing numbers of hospitalized patients who are
positive for SARS-CoV-2 (July-August 2021). Because children under 12 are not yet eligible for SARS-CoV-2
vaccines and most are returning to in-person school this fall, they will be potentially more vulnerable to
SARS-CoV-2 infection than in the past. However, it is not known if the Delta variant causes higher severity
disease in children, as it does in adults. If it does, then increased transmission as children return to in-person
school could cause demand for inpatient and intensive care unit (ICU) services at pediatric health systems to
outstrip supply. Second, granular national data are not readily available. The overall objective of this
Supplement is to make information about the trajectories of pediatric COVID-19 hospitalization rates and
disease severity readily available for national-level decision-making. We will implement pipelines to
analyze the trajectories of pediatric COVID-19 hospitalization rates and build an interactive pediatric COVID-19
severity dashboard for near-real-time tracking of the pediatric impact of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. To do this,
we will leverage the National COVID Cohort Collaborative (N3C), a resource developed with funding from the
National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS). N3C aggregates electronic health record (EHR)
data from more than 60 U.S. centers. In our prior work, we have demonstrated our ability to analyze the granular
multicenter EHR data in N3C, leverage state-of-the-art computational resources on the N3C platform, and
implement analytic techniques similar to those in this proposal. We will use these rich EHR data in N3C to
accomplish the following specific aim: 1A) visualize and test the trends of pediatric COVID-19 hospitalization
rates and disease severity over time and 1B) design and build an interactive pediatric COVID-19 severity
dashboard. We have assembled an investigative team with a successful track record in the field and will work in
partnership with NIH and N3C leadership to address this national and global health priority. We expect the
results of this Supplement proposal to have a powerful and immediate impact on the outcomes of children with
COVID-19 and pediatric COVID-19 policy-making by decreasing the likelihood of overwhelmed U.S. pediatric
health systems.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10485465
- **Project number:** 3R01HD105939-01S1
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO DENVER
- **Principal Investigator:** Tellen Bennett
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $247,165
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2021-09-22 → 2025-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10485465

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10485465, Pediatric COVID-19 Severity Dashboard During Delta Variant Circulation (3R01HD105939-01S1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-26 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10485465. Licensed CC0.

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