This week, the National Institute on Aging awarded a grant to a team of researchers based at Brown University to design a monitoring system to identify and track adverse health impacts after elderly nursing home residents receive COVID-19 vaccinations.

“Nursing home residents constitute about 40% of all deaths due to COVID in the nation, but make up less than one half of one percent of the U.S. population,” said lead investigator Vincent Mor, a professor of health services, policy and practice at Brown’s School of Public Health. “Residents are in desperate need of protection from the virus, but no one as sick as a nursing home resident was enrolled in any of the vaccine trials.”

The new effort, a supplement to a $53.4 million IMPACT Collaboratory grant awarded to Brown and Hebrew SeniorLife in 2019, provides funding for Mor and a team of Brown researchers to work with Genesis HealthCare, one of the nation’s largest post-acute care providers with more than 350 facilities across 25 states.

This news item was adapted from a release from the Brown University School of Public Health.