Alliance for Pandemic Preparedness

December 16, 2020

Nursing Home Staff Networks and COVID-19. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

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A higher degree of connectedness between nursing homes via shared staff and contractors was associated with reporting COVID-19 cases. A large-scale analysis of nursing home connections via shared staff and contractors that used smartphone geolocation data found that 5% of smartphone users who visited a nursing home for at least one hour also visited another facility during the 11-week study period following the nationwide restrictions on nursing home visitors implemented in March. The analysis indicated that on average, nursing homes share connections with 7.1 other facilities, and that the number and strength of connections between nursing homes, as well as the home’s network centrality, were strongly predictive of the presence of COVID-19 cases after controlling for location, demographic variables, number of beds, and CMS quality ratings.

Chen et al. (Jan 2021). Nursing Home Staff Networks and COVID-19. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. https://www.pnas.org/content/118/1/e2015455118