Workplace Integrated Safety and Health Program Uptake in Nursing Homes: Associations with Ownership

Workers in nursing homes are at high risk of occupational injury. Understanding whether—and which—nursing homes implement integrated policies to protect and promote worker health is crucial. We surveyed Directors of Nursing (DON) at nursing homes in three US states with the Workplace Integrated Safety and Health (WISH) assessment, a recently developed and validated instrument that assesses workplace policies, programs, and practices that affect worker safety, health, and wellbeing. We hypothesized that corporate and for-profit nursing homes would be less likely to report policies consistent with Total Worker Health (TWH) approaches. For each of the five validated WISH domains, we assessed the association between being in the lowest quartile of WISH score and ownership status using multivariable logistic regression. Our sample included 543 nursing homes, 83% which were corporate owned and 77% which were for-profit. On average, DONs reported a high implementation of TWH policies, as measured by the WISH. We did not find an association between either corporate ownership or for-profit status and WISH score for any WISH domain. Results were consistent across numerous sensitivity analyses. For-profit status and corporate ownership status do not identify nursing homes that may benefit from additional TWH approaches.