New Poll Findings

Poll Reveals How Older Adults Feel About Nursing Homes

The John A. Hartford Foundation (JAHF) asked older adults how the COVID pandemic affected their perceptions of nursing homes, and one thing is clear: Now is the time to redesign nursing home care.

Key poll findings include:

• 71% of older adults say they are unwilling to live in a nursing home in the future.
• 57% of older adults say COVID influenced whether they’d be willing to live in a nursing home.
• Nearly 90% of older adults say changes are needed to make nursing homes appealing to them.
• Black and Hispanic older adults are more likely to say nursing homes are unsafe.

To ensure all in America have access to high-quality long-term care as they age, JAHF and its partners are redesigning the future of nursing home care by supporting projects including:

• The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Committee on the Quality of Care in Nursing Homes’ recommendations and general principles for improving the quality of care in today’s nursing homes.
• The Convergence Dialogue on Reimagining Care for Older Adults’ plan for public support of consensus-based recommendations to reimagine the care of older adults in nursing homes and the range of settings they call home.
• The creation of a contemporary Teaching Nursing Home model demonstrating how enhanced partnerships between academic nursing schools and skilled nursing facilities can improve quality and cost outcomes.