The Latest Research, Commentary, And News From Health Affairs
Tuesday, August 24, 2021
Dear John,
A paper in the Age-Friendly Health series looks
at the link between nursing home staff size and COVID-19 outcomes. Look for more Age-Friendly Health articles on family caregiving for dementia patients and nursing staff levels in the September issue of Health Affairs.
Age-Friendly Health
In a study from the August 2021 issue, Brian E. McGarry and coauthors examined the influence of nursing home facility staff size on COVID-19 case rates and outcomes from June through September 2020.
They found that nursing homes with the largest number of unique staff members had cumulative resident case rates that were 92 percent higher and death rates that were 133 percent higher than those of facilities with the fewest unique staff members.
Notably, their results suggest that “overall staff size is a more important predictor of COVID-19 outcomes than ratios of direct care staff to residents and staff skill mix.”
Health Affairs’ Age-Friendly Health series is supported by The John A. Hartford Foundation. For more content in the series, visit our website.
Today on Health Affairs Blog, Katherine LeMasters and coauthors discuss the increased risks for HIV and COVID-19 for people involved in the criminal justice
system and their communities.
Linda Blumberg and Sherry Glied argue that it’s time for Congress to legislate a new Medicaid program, one that doesn’t allow recalcitrant state governments to deny coverage to their own citizens.
Scott
Howell On The Very Large Costs Of Drug Utilization Management
Health Affairs Editor-in-Chief Alan Weil interviews Scott Howell, chief strategy officer for US pharmaceuticals at Novartis Pharmaceuticals, on drug utilization management and the tension between drug manufacturers and pharmaceutical benefit designs.
The Health Equity Fellowship for Traineesis part of Health Affairs’ national initiative to advance racial equity in health policy and health services scholarly publishing. Its objective is to value and increase the quality and quantity of equity-related research published in Health Affairs that isauthored by members of racial and ethnic groups that have historically been underrepresented in scholarly publishing.
In the program, fellows will receive multilayered mentorship from experienced Health Affairs authors and editorial staff for one year (from January 2022 to December 2022). Mentors will work with fellows to make fellows’ manuscript submissions more likely to be accepted by the journal or another journal within the fellowship year. Manuscript submissions must be related to racial equity.
The application period closes on September 13, 2021.
Health Affairs is the leading peer-reviewedjournalat the
intersection of health, health care, and policy. Published monthly by Project HOPE, the journal is available in print and online. Late-breaking content is also found through healthaffairs.org, Health Affairs Today, and Health Affairs Sunday Update.
Project HOPE is a global health and humanitarian relief organization that places power in the hands of local health care workers to save lives across the globe. Project HOPE has published Health Affairs since 1981.
