Long-Term Care Facilities As a Risk Factor for Death Due to COVID-19: Evidence from European Countries and U.S. States
11 Pages Posted: 8 Jun 2020 Last revised: 8 Jul 2020
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Long-Term Care Facilities As a Risk Factor for Death Due to COVID-19: Evidence from European Countries and U.S. States
Long-Term Care Facilities as a Risk Factor for Death Due to Covid-19: Evidence from European Countries and U.S. States
Date Written: July 2, 2020
Abstract
A large percentage of the deaths from COVID-19 occur among residents of long-term care facilities. There are two possible reasons for this phenomenon. First, the structural features of such settings may lead to death. Alternatively, it is possible that individuals in these facilities are in poorer health than those living elsewhere, and that these individuals would have died even if they had not been in these facilities.
Our findings show that, controlling for the population density and the percentage of older adults in the population, there is a significant positive association between the number of long-term care beds per capita and COVID-19 mortality rates.
This finding provides support for the claim that long-term care living arrangements (of older people) are a significant risk factor for dying from COVID-19.
Note: Funding: This work was partially supported by Len Blavatnik and the Blavatnik Family foundation.
Declaration of Interest: We (the authors) declare that there are no conflicts of interest.
Ethical Approval: This is not relevant. We use publicly available data at the level of a country or a region.
Keywords: Death Due to COVID-19, Long-Term Care Facilities
JEL Classification: I1, D2
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation