COVID-19 Vaccination Rates and Influences among United States Nursing Home Administrators and Other Staff

COVID-19 has brought forward significant challenges in public health messaging and dissemination of research to the public. Residents and healthcare staff are at increased risk for COVID-19 being in settings such as skilled nursing facilities, and are at particularly high risk due to their older adult population and their higher presence of underlying chronic medical conditions. The National Association of Long-Term Care Administrator Boards provided their contact list of all 1,159 currently licensed nursing home administrators in the United States (US) in the spring of 2021 for this study. Data from 1,004 completed surveys of US licensed nursing home administrators and their employees measuring COVID-19 vaccination rates and influences. A majority of participants (85.0%) planned to or already received the vaccine. Common themes surrounding the participants’ perceptions of the COVID-19 vaccine included wanting to protect themselves, their families ,and co-workers, and to stop the spread of the virus, among others.