COVID-19 Lessons for Care Home Standards and Regulatory Approaches: Evidence from Sweden on structural characteristics of LTC facilities and COVID-19 mortality

GOLTC Care Home Markets and Regulation Interest Group webinar

Date: 11 June 2024

Time: 1.00pm-2.00pm BST

As in many countries around the globe, older citizens in long-term care facilities (LTCFs) in Sweden were hit hard by the Coronavirus pandemic, but mortality varied greatly between different facilities. Current knowledge about the causes of this variation is limited. This article closes this gap by focusing on the link between the structural characteristics of LTCFs—ownership, size, and staffing—and the risk of dying from COVID-19 in Sweden during 2020. Drawing on the register data of all individuals approved by the authorities to reside at a nursing home as of February 2020 (N=83,083) and facility-level data (facility size, form of ownership, and five personnel characteristics), the results of our analysis suggest that lower staff turnover, having a nurse employed at the facility, and smaller facility size are associated with an decreased risk of dying from COVID-19. Ownership type is not directly associated with COVID-19-related mortality, but public facilities have lower staff turnover and fewer personnel with additional employment than privately run facilities, while privately run LTCFs more often have a nurse employed at the facility.

The webinar covers:

1. Introduction to the Global Observatory of Long-Term care and welcome (Adelina Comas-Herrera, Care Policy and Evaluation Centre, LSE, UK)

2. Introduction to the GOLTC Care Home Markets and Regulation Interest Group, Dr Igor Shagalov, CPEC, LSE

3. The Structural Characteristics of Long-Term Care Facilities and COVID-19 Mortality: Evidence from Sweden, Presentation by Professor Marina Nistotskaya and Associate Professor Rasmus Broms, University of Gothenburg

4. Q&A session led by Dr Jose-Luis Fernandez, CPEC, LSE