Characteristics of U.S. Nursing Homes with COVID‐19 Cases

Abrams, Hannah R.; Loomer, Lacey; Gandhi, Ashvin; Grabowski, David C.

BACKGROUND: COVID‐19 has been documented in a large share of nursing homes throughout the United States. This has led to high rates of mortality for residents. In order to understand how to prevent and mitigate future outbreaks, it is imperative that we understand which nursing homes are more likely to experience COVID‐19 cases. OBJECTIVE: To examine the characteristics of nursing homes with documented COVID‐19 cases in 30 states reporting individual facilities affected. DESIGN AND SETTING: We constructed a database of nursing homes with verified COVID‐19 cases as of May 11, 2020 via correspondence with and publicly available reports from state departments of health. We linked this information to nursing home characteristics and used regression analysis to examine association between these characteristics and the likelihood of having a documented COVID‐19 case. RESULTS: Of 9,395 nursing homes in our sample, 2,949 (31.4%) had a documented COVID‐19 case. Larger facility size, urban location, greater percentage of African American residents, non‐chain status, and state were significantly (p<0.05) related to increased probability of having a COVID‐19 case. Five‐star rating, prior infection violation, Medicaid dependency, and ownership were not significantly related. CONCLUSIONS: COVID‐19 cases in nursing homes are related to facility location and size and not traditional quality metrics such as star rating and prior infection control citations. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.