Climate Change Impacts on the Health and Safety of U.S. Nursing Home Residents

Nursing home residents are among the most vulnerable Americans to climate-related disasters, yet the health consequences of these events for this population remain poorly understood. Older adults with complex medical needs face heightened risks from hurricanes, floods, heat waves, winter storms, cold snaps, and wildfires due to physical frailty, cognitive impairment, reliance on medical equipment and medications, and dependence on facility-based care, including staff and infrastructure. Despite this, existing research has largely focused on community-dwelling populations, leaving a critical gap in our understanding of how climate events affect institutionalized older adults and the facilities that care for them. This study will leverage Medicare claims data and novel claims-based patient safety measures from 2010-2024 to evaluate the impacts of climate-related disasters on nursing home residents nationwide. We will examine acute health outcomes among residents, disruptions to facility-level patient safety, and the role of power outages as a mechanism linking climate events to adverse outcomes. Findings will inform disaster preparedness policy and nursing home regulation, which includes federal requirements for emergency preparedness plans.

“Nursing home residents are highly dependent on facility staffing and infrastructure to be safe during extreme weather. This project will give us the first national picture of how these events affect the functioning of nursing home services and the health of residents.”

Kate Burrows, Assistant Professor of Public Health Sciences