English

Long-Term Care Facilities as a Risk Factor for Death Due to COVID-19

Physics and Society 2020-06-29 v2 Populations and Evolution

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.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2006.06410,
  title  = {Long-Term Care Facilities as a Risk Factor for Death Due to COVID-19},
  author = {Neil Gandal and Matan Yonas and Michal Feldman and Ady Pauzner and Avraham Tabbach},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2006.06410},
  year   = {2020}
}