Heading into a third year of the pandemic, 19.7{f771d91d784324d4be731abc64bffe0d1fd8f26504ceb311bcfd8e5b001778f4} of healthcare support workers say they have faced food insecurity in the previous month, a study found. Compare that to a 6.6{f771d91d784324d4be731abc64bffe0d1fd8f26504ceb311bcfd8e5b001778f4} food insecurity rate among all healthcare workers.

The problem is the worst in nursing homes, where 22.7{f771d91d784324d4be731abc64bffe0d1fd8f26504ceb311bcfd8e5b001778f4} of healthcare support workers, people who work as aides and assistants, reported lacking access to enough food, the study published this fall in Health Affairs showed.

Healthcare workers have often been missed in conversations about food access because previous studies and interventions have focused on the general population, said Mithuna Srinivasan, principal research scientist at NORC at the University of Chicago and an author of the study on healthcare worker food insecurity.

“The gap in that research is that it was all focused on patients’ food insecurity,” Srinivasan said. “Nobody asked the questions from the standpoint of healthcare workers themselves.”

Many workers

The World Health Organization says the number of COVID-19 cases recorded worldwide increased by 11{f771d91d784324d4be731abc64bffe0d1fd8f26504ceb311bcfd8e5b001778f4} last week compared with the previous week, with the biggest increase in the Americas. The gain followed a gradual increase since October.

The U.N. health agency said in its weekly epidemiological report released late Tuesday that there were nearly 4.99 million newly reported cases around the world from Dec. 20-26.

Europe accounted for more than half the total, with 2.84 million, though that amounted to only a 3{f771d91d784324d4be731abc64bffe0d1fd8f26504ceb311bcfd8e5b001778f4} increase over the previous week. It also had the highest infection rate of any region, with 304.6 new cases per 100,000 residents.

WHO said that new cases in the Americas were up 39{f771d91d784324d4be731abc64bffe0d1fd8f26504ceb311bcfd8e5b001778f4} to nearly 1.48 million, and the region had the second-highest infection rate with 144.4 new cases per 100,000 residents. The U.S. alone saw more than 1.18 million cases, a 34{f771d91d784324d4be731abc64bffe0d1fd8f26504ceb311bcfd8e5b001778f4} increase.

Reported new cases

While 2021 was a year of innovations in how care is delivered to adjust to the COVID-19 pandemic, big questions remain about how some of these changes are impacting hospital quality and safety.

Though the pandemic affected every community, many localities have shouldered a disproportionate share of COVID-19 hospitalizations, deaths and job losses. Those factors will need to considered when regulators determine how to measure hospital performance for the Medicare star ratings program, said Dr. Rishi Wadhera, a health policy researcher and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School.

“We need to think about how the broader context in terms of public health and economic shock affected the trajectory of outcomes in specific communities, and how that affects our assessment of how well hospitals are doing,” Wadhera said.

For instance, Vizient data from its health system clients show that lower-acuity patients used emergency departments less and alternate sites more since the