# Staffing and Health Outcomes in Nursing Homes for Residents with and without Dementia

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-IRVINE · 2022 · $557,668

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
 Nurse staffing – registered nurses, licensed practical nurses, and certified nurses’ assistants – have long
been considered an important factor determining the quality of care that nursing home residents receive and
their health outcomes. Information about nurse staffing levels are included in Nursing Home Compare (NHC),
the report card published by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) as one of the three 5 Star
sub-measures, as well as the overall 5-Star measure. Many states and the Federal Government have
established minimum staffing standards for nursing homes. These attest to the importance that policy makers,
experts, advocates, and residents place on staffing, as both determinants and indicators of quality.
 With the increasing prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD), nursing homes are
facing an increasing population of residents with dementia (RWD). These residents are expected to require
even higher staffing levels, compared with residents without ADRD. Yet, the information about, and our
understanding of the needs for staffing other than nursing, such as therapists and social workers, and
specifically how nurse staffing and other professional staff influence health outcomes for RWD is lacking. The
objective of this proposal is 1) to address this gap in knowledge; and 2) to assess the impact of the projected
increase in RWD in nursing homes on workforce requirements. This has been identified as an important policy
objective, as indicated in the National Institute on Aging’s Research Milestone 13.J.
 The specific aims of the application are: 1) To apply econometric techniques to administrative data to
estimate the effects of short- and long-term variations in nursing, therapy and social work staffing levels to
several short- and long-term outcome measures for nursing homes treating a small percent and a large
percent of RWD, and to assess the incremental staffing requirement by staff type and health outcome required
in nursing homes with a high population of RWD compared with nursing homes with a low population of RWD;
2) To determine the implications of the findings for nursing homes and for local, state and national labor
markets based on projected prevalence of RWD in nursing homes; and 3) To develop a web-based application
for policy and decision makers based on our findings, which would allow them to test the impact of different
ADRD and RWD growth scenarios and staffing standards policies on workforce predictions at the nursing
home and market level.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10368160
- **Project number:** 5R01AG066742-03
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-IRVINE
- **Principal Investigator:** DANA B MUKAMEL
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $557,668
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2020-06-01 → 2025-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10368160

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10368160, Staffing and Health Outcomes in Nursing Homes for Residents with and without Dementia (5R01AG066742-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10368160. Licensed CC0.

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