© 2002 American Public Health Association
Daniel L. Howard and Persephone J. Taylor are with the Department of Natural and Physical Sciences, Environmental Science Program, Shaw University, Raleigh, NC. Philip D. Sloane is with the Department of Family Medicine and Sheryl Zimmerman is with the School of Social Work, and both are with the Program on Aging, Disability, and Long-Term Care of the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. J. Kevin Eckert is with the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Verita C. Buie is with the Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, University of Maryland, Baltimore. At the time of the study, Joan Walsh was with the Aging, Disability, and Long-Term Care Program, Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Gary G. Koch is with the Department of Biostatistics, School of Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Correspondence: Requests for reprints should be sent to Philip Sloane, MD, MPH, 725 Airport Rd, CB 7590, Chapel Hill, NC 275997590 (e-mail: psloane{at}med.unc.edu).
Objectives. In this study, we examined racial separation in long-term care. Methods. We used a survey of a stratified sample of 181 residential care/assisted living (RC/AL) facilities and 39 nursing homes in 4 states. Results. Most African Americans resided in nursing homes and smaller RC/AL facilities and tended to be concentrated in a few predominantly African American facilities, whereas the vast majority of Whites resided in predominantly White facilities. Facilities housing African Americans tended to be located in rural, nonpoor, African American communities, to admit individuals with mental retardation and difficulty in ambulating, and to have lower ratings of cleanliness/maintenance and lighting. Conclusions. These racial disparities may result from economic factors, exclusionary practices, or resident choice. Whether separation relates to inequities in care is undetermined. (Am J Public Health. 2002;92:12721277)
Although nursing homes and other long-term care facilities have in the past served a predominantly White population,14 the proportion of African Americans in long-term care has increased steadily over the past 4 decades.1,5 In 1963, an estimated 27 White and 10 minority elderly persons per 1000 persons in the general population resided in nursing homes, yielding a minorityWhite ratio of 37%. In 1969 this ratio stood at 46%; by 1977 it had risen to 60%, and by 1989 it was 65%.1 The racial gap in use of long-term care is therefore narrowing. However, questions about the nature and quality of long-term care received by different racial groups remain unaddressed, a matter of relevance in light of the industrys organizational evolution. Within the United States, nursing homes have traditionally provided most institutional long-term care to elderly persons. Recently, however, residential care/assisted living (RC/AL) facilities have grown rapidly as a source of long-term care. RC/AL facilities are regulated by the states, often under multiple licensure categories, and vary widely in size, clientele, services, and characteristics. Growth of the RC/AL sector over the past decade and a half has far exceeded that of nursing homes, and analysts predict that the number of RC/AL beds will equal or exceed that of nursing homes by the year 2005.6 Previous studies have suggested that individual nursing homes7,8 and RC/AL facilities911 tend to serve predominantly 1 race. However, the extent to which racial separation exists across facility subtypes is unknown. Understanding the degree of racial separation and the factors associated with it may determine whether matters of access within long-term care or other factors, such as community characteristics and personal choice, are the primary determinants of separation. The aim of this study was to determine whether the long-term care industry is racially separated across all facility types, and if so, to what degree this is the case and whether and to what extent this racial separation correlates with facility and community characteristics. We used data from a 4-state sample of 220 facilities and US census data to examine the prevalence and distribution of African American and White residents in the study facilities and to evaluate the association between racial distribution and facility, resident, and community characteristics.
Sample These analyses used data from the Collaborative Studies of Long-Term Care (CS-LTC), a study of 193 licensed RC/AL facilities and 40 nursing homes in Florida, Maryland, New Jersey, and North Carolina. The CS-LTC defined an RC/AL as a facility or discrete portion of a facility, licensed by the state at a nonnursing home level of care, that provided room, board, 24-hour oversight, and assistance with activities of daily living. Within each state, the CS-LTC selected a sample of counties that was representative of the state in terms of a variety of demographic and health services and economic indicators.
Within each states sampling region, a random sample of all licensed facilities was selected in each of 4 strata: RC/AL facilities with fewer than 16 beds; new-model RC/AL homes ( The study sample excluded the following: facilities primarily serving persons with mental illness or developmental disabilities; RC/AL facilities with fewer than 16 beds and fewer than 4 residents aged 65 and older; larger RC/AL facilities with fewer than 10 residents aged 65 and older; and nursing homes with fewer than 40 residents aged 65 and older. Exclusions due to size resulted in minimal loss to the sampling pool. Small RC/AL facilities were oversampled to achieve the desired resident sample sizes for the longitudinal aims of the CS-LTC study. Across the 4 study states, it was estimated that RC/AL homes with fewer than 16 beds represented 1216 facilities and 10 301 beds, traditional RC/AL homes represented 877 facilities and 44 420 beds, new-model RC/AL homes represented 407 facilities and 25 547 beds, and nursing homes represented 1551 facilities and 175 990 beds. Among eligible facilities, the overall recruitment rate was 59%. Participating and nonparticipating facilities did not differ by age, size, or occupancy or by resident age, race, or ethnicity. Nonparticipating RC/AL facilities tended to have owners that worked more hours in the facility, more variety in the rates that residents are charged, and a slightly less impaired resident population in comparison with participating RC/AL facilities. Nonparticipating nursing homes tended to have higher occupancy rates and less resident impairment than participating nursing homes. Details about the CS-LTC have been published elsewhere.12 Data were collected between October 1997 and November 1998. For the analyses described here, 13 facilities that had incomplete or unavailable data on resident racial characteristics were excluded. The final analytic sample included 105 small RC/AL facilities, 37 traditional RC/AL facilities, 39 new-model RC/AL facilities, and 39 nursing homes, distributed approximately equally across the 4 study states. At the time of data collection, these facilities housed an estimated 6838 Whites and 1187 African Americans.
Independent Variables Resident characteristics. Administrators estimated the number of residents present in their facility who were aged 19 to 64, 65 to 84, and 85 years and older; who were male, chairfast, bedfast, mentally retarded, mentally ill, or demented; who had alcohol-related problems; or who presented behavioral problems to the facility. Community characteristics. We obtained 1990 census data associated with each facilitys surrounding zip code area from the US Census Bureaus Panel Survey of Income Dynamics.14 These data included selected measures of community racial mix, economic indicators, family/social networks, and urbanicity.
Dependent Variables
Analysis
To test the hypothesis that racial variation within facilities reflected underlying community characteristics, multivariate logistic regression was employed to simultaneously control for multiple community variables that could potentially influence African Americans access to facilities. The dependent variable was the presence or absence of African American residents in a facility; independent variables included measures of racial, economic, family/social, and urban/rural status. Because the sample size did not permit simultaneous evaluation of all variables, only characteristics demonstrating bivariate associations at P
Characteristics of the Sample Facilities Table 1
Proportion and Distribution of Facility Residents by Race A total of 127 facilities (58%) had no African American residents (Table 2
The proportion of African Americans varied widely by study stratum. African Americans represented an estimated 24% of the nursing home population. Among the RC/AL facilities, the smaller homes contained the highest proportion of African American residents (13% of total residents). Traditional and new-model RC/AL facilities contained few African American residents (5% and 4% of total residents, respectively). In the 2 settings where African Americans were most prevalent, the majority (73% of residents in smaller RC/AL homes, 58% of residents in nursing homes) resided in facilities that were predominantly African American. Across all 4 strata, the vast majority of Whites (93%100%) lived in facilities that were predominantly White.
Facility Characteristics Associated With Facility Racial Composition Among 12 admission criteria examined, the presence of African Americans was associated in some facility types with willingness to admit individuals who were bedfast (new-model RC/AL; r = 0.39, P < .05) or mentally retarded (traditional RC/AL; r = 0.45, P < .01). Significant (P < .05) associations were not noted between any facility type and admission policies regarding ambulation, feeding, bathing, dressing, grooming, incontinence, communication abilities, mental illness, or drug/alcohol problems.
Resident Characteristics and Facility Racial Composition
Community Characteristics and Facility Racial Composition Across all facility types, the proportion of African Americans residing in the surrounding community was related to the presence of African American residents in the facility (for RC/AL facilities with < 16 beds, r = 0.43, P < .0001; for traditional RC/AL facilities, r = 0.39, P < .05; for new-model RC/AL facilities, r = 0.51, P < .001; for nursing homes, r = 0.36, P < .01). The converse was true for the proportion of Whites in the surrounding community (for RC/AL facilities with < 16 beds, r = 0.43, P < .0001; for traditional RC/AL facilities, r = 0.36, P < .05; for new-model RC/AL facilities, r = 0.40, P < .05; for nursing homes, r = 0.29, P < .1). One economic indicator, the percentage of elderly below the poverty line, showed a relationship with the presence of African Americans in RC/AL facilities with fewer than 16 beds (r = 0.17, P < .05) but not with their presence in other facility types; mean family income and the percentage of persons below the poverty line were not associated with the presence of African Americans in any facility type. Of the 3 family/social network indicators testedthe percentage of single femaleheaded households, the number of households with nonfamily members, and the percentage of households with public assistance incomenone was associated with the presence of African Americans in any facility type. The location of a facility in an urban area (represented as a dichotomous variable) was negatively associated with the presence of African Americans in RC/AL facilities with fewer than 16 beds (r = 0.20, P < .01) and new-model RC/AL facilities (r = 0.46, P < .01), but not with their presence in traditional RC/AL facilities or nursing homes. The percentage of workers whose occupation was farming was not associated with the presence of African Americans in any facility type.
Multivariate logistic regression demonstrated that, across all facility types, the presence of African Americans in a facility was positively associated with facility type and neighborhood racial characteristics and negatively associated with community urbanicity and the percentage of elderly below the poverty line (Table 4
Between 2000 and 2030, the ethnic composition of the elderly population will change substantially, with the older African American population expanding by 168% and the older White population increasing by 90%.15 A growing African American elderly population could accentuate existing racial disparities in long-term care. Therefore, it is critical to improve our understanding of the extent, causes, and implications of uneven racial distribution across the spectrum of long-term care.
This studys results substantiate widespread racial separation both across and within facility types. In the study sample, nearly all Whites lived in predominantly White facilities, and the majority of African Americans resided in facilities that were predominantly African American (Table 2 Study results also reveal that the proportion of African American residents varied widely by facility type. Nursing homes served the highest proportion of African Americans (24%); among RC/AL facilities, the smaller homes housed the greatest proportion (13%) and the other types housed very few. Of note is that the most rapidly growing stratum, new-model RC/AL facilities, served the lowest percentage of African Americans, raising concern that the recent growth in assisted living may exacerbate existing racial disparities in access to long-term care. Although no comparable data are available from RC/AL facilities, Fennell et al. suggest that a similar albeit less prominent separation phenomenon exists in nursing homes.16 The underlying cause of this racial separation is unclear, and it is also unclear whether this separation is cause for concern. One contributing factor appears to be economics. In nursing homes, where African Americans are most prevalent, most facility revenues nationally come from Medicaid.17 The reliance of nursing homes on Medicaid reimbursement ensures access for poor elderly African Americans.5,18 RC/AL is financed quite differently, and variation exists across facility types in the way services are funded. Small homes are largely operated by poor, older women and primarily serve low-income elderly.9 In this "housing of last resort" for poor elderly Americans, residents pay with Supplemental Social Security Insurance and State Supplemental Payments, although Medicaid waivers are increasingly being explored.19 Lower costs of care in these homes reflect what the near-poor (those who have not yet spent down personal resources) are able to pay. By contrast, most newer assisted living facilities are marketed toward middle- and upper-income people. Thus, the 2 types of homes providing the best access for low-income personsnursing homes and small RC/AL facilitiesalso house the highest proportion of African Americans.
Another potential explanation of the observed racial separation is exclusionary practices. Predominantly African American facilities were more apt to have admission criteria favoring admittance of individuals who were mentally retarded and unable to ambulate. This is significant because, in general, African American elderly are in poorer health and have more chronic and disabling conditions compared with White elderly.20 Accordingly, Smith11 maintains that long-term care facilities have preserved the ability to control who gets admitted through control of payer mix, case mix, duration of stay, and race. Data reported in Table 3
A final potential explanation of the unequal racial distribution may be that African Americans freely choose to enter facilities with significant proportions of residents or caregivers of their own race. Study analyses revealed that in RC/AL facilities with fewer than 16 beds, there was a strong positive relationship between the facility administrators being African American and the presence of African American residents; they also demonstrated that the only facilities that were exclusively African American were RC/AL facilities with fewer than 16 beds (Table 2
One potentially inconsistent result is the finding that, in spite of housing very few African Americans, new-model RC/AL facilities are more likely than smaller residential care facilities to have at least 1 African American resident (Table 4 These data must be interpreted cautiously. Although the sample was randomly chosen from eligible facilities, the study excluded RC/AL facilities specializing in care for persons with developmental disabilities and mental retardation, to whom results may not apply. Furthermore, multiple bivariate comparisons were conducted to evaluate the relationships between the presence of African Americans and a variety of resident and facility characteristics; therefore, statistical results must be evaluated in that context. Finally, it should be acknowledged that most of the facility data used in these analyses, including data on the racial composition of the residents, were reported by administrators and not validated by direct observation. However, the data were gathered during in-person interviews by trained field personnel who remained in the facility for several days; data collected in this manner are likely to be more reliable than questionnaire data. Although this study clearly demonstrates the presence of racial separation, it is not known whether quality of care differs by race. The study identified lower scores on cleanliness/maintenance and lighting among facilities that served African Americans; however, the cross-sectional nature of these data precludes drawing any inferences about cause and effect, and these are just 2 facility indicators among many dozens that relate to the quality of care. Nevertheless, it is of concern that facilities serving primarily African Americans may have fewer funds, and consequently fewer services and amenities, compared with facilities serving mostly private-pay residents.5 Published studies from other settings demonstrating racial inequities in quality of care, including recent data suggesting that early pressure sores often go undetected in African American nursing home residents, lend weight to these concerns.16 Certain questions follow from this documentation of demographic disparity. What are the effects of differences in access, racial separation, and facility characteristics on outcomes, and do outcome discrepancies by race exist? If outcomes vary little or not at all, then less incentive will exist for policy initiatives to reduce the amount of racial separation. However, if outcomes vary considerably, it becomes imperative to seek improved methods of ensuring equivalent quality care to all elderly in long-term care, irrespective of race.
This research was supported by grants from the National Institute on Aging (RO1 AG13871, RO1 AG13863, and NR0471605). The authors wish to acknowledge the cooperation of the facilities, residents, and families participating in the CS-LTC, as well as the other CS-LTC investigators, including Drs J. Richard Hebel and Jay Magaziner (University of Maryland, Baltimore). Expert data collection was overseen by Betty Concha and conducted by Mary Alice McGurrin, Christine Schmitt, Ida Altman, Joan Bassler, Susan Baxter, Shirley Carter, Betty Dorsey, Diane Eagle, Susan Fallen, David Fallen, Jo Magness, Connie Nunamaker, Ronald Nunamaker, and Barbara Smith (University of Maryland, Baltimore), and data management was performed by Jane Darter (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill).
Human Participant Protection
D. L. Howard, P. D. Sloane, S. Zimmerman, J. K. Eckert, J. F. Walsh, and V. C. Buie contributed to the conception and design. D. L. Howard, J. F. Walsh, and G. G. Koch provided analysis and interpretation of data. All authors contributed to drafting and revision of the final article. Accepted for publication January 18, 2002.
1. Belgrave LL, Wykle ML, Choi JM. Health, double jeopardy and culture: the use of institutionalization by elderly African Americans. Gerontologist. 1993;33:379385.[Abstract] 2. Mui AC, Burnette D. Long-term care service use by frail elders: is ethnicity a factor? Gerontologist. 1994;34:190198.[Abstract] 3. Kemper P, Murtaugh CM. Lifetime use of nursing home care. N Engl J Med. 1991;324:595629.[Abstract] 4. Salive ME, Collins KS, Foley DJ, George LK. Predictors of nursing home admission in a biracial population. Am J Public Health. 1993;83:17751777. 5. Brooks S. Separate and unequal. Contemp Longterm Care. 1996;19:4041, 4345, 4749. 6. Meyer H. The bottom line on assisted living. Hosp Health Netw. 1998;72:2225. 7. Cyr B, Schafft G. Nursing Homes and the Black Elderly: Utilization and Satisfaction: Final Report, October 1, 1978October 1, 1979. Washington, DC: Foundation of the American College of Nursing Home Administrators; 1980. 8. Schafft G. Research brief: nursing homes and the black elderly. J Long Term Care Adm. 1979;7:3543. 9. Morgan LA, Eckert JK, Lyon SM. Small Board-and-Care Homes: Residential Care in Transition. Baltimore, Md: Johns Hopkins University Press; 1995. 10. Mutran EJ, Sudha S, Reed P, Menon MP, Desai T. African Americans use of long-term care facilities: the case of adult care homes. In: Zimmerman S, Sloane PD, Eckert JK, eds. Assisted Living: Needs, Practices and Policies in Residential Care for the Elderly. Baltimore, Md: John Hopkins University Press; 2001:92114. 11. Smith DB. Health Care Divided: Race and Healing a Nation. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; 1999. 12. Zimmerman S, Sloane PD, Eckert JK, et al. Overview of the collaborative studies of long-term care. In: Zimmerman S, Sloane PD, Eckert JK, eds. Assisted Living: Needs, Practices and Policies in Residential Care for the Elderly. Baltimore, Md: Johns Hopkins University Press; 2001:117143.
13. Sloane PD, Mitchell CM, Weisman G, et al. The Therapeutic Environment Screening Survey for Nursing Homes (TESS-NH): an observational instrument for assessing the physical environment of institutional settings for persons with dementia.J Gerontol Soc Sci. 2002;57B:S69S78. 14. Panel survey of income dynamics, contextual files (1997). Available at: http://www.isr.umich.edu/src/psid. Accessed May 17, 2002. 15. US Census Bureau. Projections of the total resident population by 5-year age groups, race, and Hispanic origin with special age categories: middle series, 2025 to 2045. Available at: http://www.census.gov/population/projections/nation/summary/np-t4-f.txt. Accessed March 6, 2001.
16. Fennell ML, Miller SC, Mor V. Facility effects on racial differences in nursing home quality of care. Am J Med Qual. 2000;15:174181. 17. Health Care Financing Administration, Office of the Actuary. Data from the Office of National Health Statistics. Available at: http://www.hcfa.gov/news/n970127.htm. Accessed May 17, 2002. 18. Miller B, Campbell RT, Davis L, et al. Minority use of community long-term care services: a comparative analysis. J Gerontol. 1996;51B:S70S81. 19. Mollica RL. State assisted living policy 2000. Available at: http://www.nashp.org/home.html. Accessed March 6, 2001. 20. Institute of Medicine. Health Care in a Context of Civil Rights. Washington, DC: National Academy Press; 1981.
21. Howard DL, Konrad TR, Stevens C, Porter C. Physicianpatient racial concordance, effectiveness of care, use of services, and patient satisfaction. Res Aging. 2001;23:83107. This article has been cited by other articles:
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