September 22, 2020

Racial and Ethnic Disparities in COVID‐19 Infections and Deaths across U.S. Nursing Homes

Category: Article Summary

Topic: Clinical Characteristics and Health Care Setting

Keywords (Tags): disparities, health care setting

• A national study of 12,576 nursing homes indicated that nursing homes caring for disproportionately more racial/ethnic minority residents tended to have more new COVID-19 confirmed cases among their residents and staff and more new COVID-19 related deaths among residents. The number of weekly new COVID-19 confirmed cases among residents increased with higher nursing home proportion of racial/ethnic minorities, from an average of 0.4 cases per facility (SD=2.5) for the low-proportion group (93% of which had zero new case) to 1.5 cases per facility (SD=6.3) for the highest-proportion group (79% had zero new case). In addition, the authors found no substantial disparities in self-reported shortages of staff or PPE.

Li et al. (Sept 21, 2020). Racial and Ethnic Disparities in COVID‐19 Infections and Deaths across U.S. Nursing Homes. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. https://doi.org/10.1111/jgs.16847