Rural-Urban Differences in the Associations Between Aging and Disability Services and COVID-19 Vaccination Rates Among Older Adults

Abstract

Aging services were poised to play an important role in supporting the COVID-19 vaccination rollout for older adults. In this study, we use ordinary least squares regression models of county-level data (N = 3086) to examine if density of aging and disability services is associated with COVID-19 vaccination rates for older adults in rural and urban areas of the United States. We find that net of compositional characteristics, county-level density of aging and disability services is associated with higher older adult vaccination rates. However, in the rural-urban stratified models, this only remained consistently true for rural counties. Given higher risk of COVID-19 mortality for older adults and larger relative shares of older adults in rural areas, rural counties with low vaccination rates should invest in supporting and/or expanding older adult services to facilitate vaccination.

Keywords

COVID-19 health behaviors rural aging services

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