Journal of aging & social policy
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With nursing homes being hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important to know whether facilities that have any cases, or those with particularly high caseloads, are different from nursing homes that do not have any reported cases. Our analysis found that through mid-June, just under one-third of nursing homes in Ohio had at least one resident with COVID-19, with over 82% of all cases in the state coming from 37% of nursing homes. Overall findings on the association between facility quality and the prevalence of COVID-19 showed that having any resident case of the virus or even having a high caseload of residents with the virus is not more likely in nursing homes with lower quality ratings.
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As of May 2020, nursing home residents account for a staggering one-third of the more than 80,000 deaths due to COVID-19 in the U. S. ⋯ This perspective offers a framework, designed with the input of nursing home leaders, to facilitate internal and external decision-making and collective action to address these threats. Policy options focus on assuring a shared understanding among nursing home leaders and government agencies of changes in the operational status of nursing homes throughout the crisis, improving access to additional essential resources needed to mitigate the crisis' impact, and promoting shared accountability for consistently achieving accepted standards in core quality domains.
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During the COVID-19 pandemic, we face an exacerbation of ageism as well as a flourish of intergenerational solidarity. The use of chronological age is an unjustified threshold for the creation of public policies to control the spreading of the virus; doing so reinforces intrapersonal and interpersonal negative age stereotypes and violates older persons' human rights to autonomy, proper care treatment, work, and equality. ⋯ Concurrently, several initiatives are trying to overcome ageist practices by providing different types of assistance to older adults on the basis of need rather than chronological age. The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Network EuroAgeism calls on policymakers to refrain from ageist practices and language, as they exacerbate our ability to meet the COVID-19 crisis and future emergencies.
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What services are available and where racial and ethnic minorities receive long-term services and supports (LTSS) have resulted in a lower quality of care and life for racial/ethnic minority users. These disparities are only likely to worsen during the COVID-19 pandemic, as the pandemic has disproportionately affected racial and ethnic minority communities both in the rate of infection and virus-related mortality. By examining these disparities in the context of the pandemic, we bring to light the challenges and issues faced in LTSS by minority communities with regard to this virus as well as the disparities in LTSS that have always existed.
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Older adults in rural areas of the U. S. face unique risks related to COVID-19. ⋯ Altogether, this puts rural older adults at risk of not only the virus, but of not being able to meet their health care, social, and basic needs. Rural/urban inequities, combined with within-rural inequities in health, health care, and financial resources cause particular challenges to health and well-being from COVID-19 for some older adults.