ASPE Issue Brief

The COVID-19 pandemic has put extreme stress on the health care workforce in the United States, leading to workforce shortages as well as increased health care worker burnout, exhaustion, and trauma.

This brief is the third publication from the Continuity of Care Services Following Coordinated Specialty Care study. It provides a short overview of the different approaches to continuity of care for young adults who have attended CSC programs and explores avenues for integration within programs and organizations as a way to support young adults following a completion of a CSC program.

This report examines recently-released 2021 National Health Interview Survey data to assess coverage changes during the pandemic, finding a decrease in the uninsured rate in 2021 for the population as a whole and by race, ethnicity, and income.

This analysis applies the Federal Committee on Statistical Methodology's Data Quality Framework to assess the data quality of federal data for understanding and responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on five COVID-19 indicators: testing, cases, hospitalizations, deaths, and vaccinations.

Prescriptions dispensed for antipsychotics in nursing homes and assisted living facilities increased since the beginning of the pandemic, with 20.8 thousand dispensed in 2020 compared to 20.5 thousand in 2019. This represents a 1.5% increase in total prescriptions since the beginning of the pandemic despite lower resident census levels in long-term care facilities (LTCFs).

We document a number of key facts related to trends in COVID-19 vaccination intentions of unvaccinated adults in the United States from April 2021 to January 2022 using the Household Pulse Survey. First, among unvaccinated adults both those who were willing to vaccinate and those who were previously unwilling to vaccinate eventually vaccinated in large numbers.

In response to the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services provided a 2021 Special Enrollment Period (SEP) from February 15 to August 15, 2021. Understanding the sociodemographic composition of Marketplace enrollees allows for better targeted outreach and enrollment assistance. However, many enrollees do not report their race and ethnicity.

This brief provides an overview of the important role the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has had on increasing access to comprehensive coverage among women. Over 10 million adult women (19-64) gained coverage between 2010 and 2019, as did over 7 million women of reproductive age (15-44). Despite the ACA’s coverage gains, approximately 7.9 million women of reproductive age remain uninsured.

This ASPE issue brief examines demographic characteristics of adults receiving booster doses of COVID-19 vaccines using data from the U.S. Census Bureau's Household Pulse Survey. As of March 9, 2022, 47.5 percent of the fully vaccinated adult population has received a booster.

Medicare served nearly 63 million beneficiaries in 2019. 62 percent were enrolled in Part A or Part B, and the rest (37 percent) were in Medicare Advantage (Part C). 74 percent were enrolled in Part D drug coverage, 13 percent had private drug coverage, and nearly 9 percent had no drug coverage. Demographic characteristics and health status varied across these groups.