I recently came across an interesting study sponsored by the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing and Care (NIC) and conducted by NORC (formerly the National Opinion Research Center) at the University of Chicago. The most interesting finding, from my point of view, is that CCRC residents live longer than those who “age in place” at home.

CCRC residents also live longer, on average, than residents in facilities dedicated only to assisted living or to memory care, but not quite as long as those in purely independent-living facilities. Digging down into the results provides some additional interesting details.

How the research was done. The study compared people who moved into “senior housing” (CCRC, assisted living, memory care, or purely independent-living) in 2017 vs. a control population who stayed in their homes. The groups were followed for two years. These were fairly large senior housing facilities: to be included, they had to have at least 11 move-ins during 2017. The groups were compared on “mortality rates”, meaning the percentage of deaths during the two-year study period.

The overall result: there was 20.1% mortality among those who moved into senior housing, and 22.4% mortality among those who remained at home (“in the community”). The range of results from one facility to another was very broad, however. For example, among memory care facilities, there were mortality rates ranging from about 12% to over 33%.

For reasons that are not completely clear to me, not all the results were reported in terms of mortality. Some results were given as “average days alive”, where the theoretical maximum would be 730 days (meaning everyone survived two full years—365 X 2 = 730).

Variations among CCRCs.  CCRCs were definitely better than staying at home by this measure. The CCRC residents averaged 669 days alive, vs. 657 for those remaining at home. But not all CCRCs were equally beneficial. There were striking variations among them. They ranged from 644 days alive (actually worse than staying at home) to 709 days alive (much better than at home).

No other type of facility came close to the 709 days alive that the best of the CCRCs achieved. It would be interesting to know how Kendal-Crosslands rates on this metric. I suspect we would do well.

Other aspects of the study. The study also investigated the days away from home base (e.g. hospital stays) for each group, the amount of in-residence care received, and the use of anti-psychotic drugs in the various settings, among other things.

If you want more details, a summary of the findings is here: https://content.nic.org/NIC_Analysis-of-Longevity-Among-Senior-Housing_Summary_Report