By Geralyn Magan
Meet Verena Cimarolli and learn more about the LTSS Center’s research on climate change, financial security, and nursing home reform.
MEET VERENA CIMAROLLI
Verena Cimarolli, the vice president of applied research and partnerships at the LeadingAge LTSS Center @UMass Boston, reflected on her career journey during an October interview with McKnight’s Long-Term Care News.
Cimarolli was a research scientist at The New Jewish Home in New York when she met LTSS Center Co-Director Robyn Stone and landed a job as a research associate at LeadingAge. The job, she says, “was written for me.”
In her current position, Cimarolli conducts applied research studies focused on improving how aging services and supports are delivered and experienced by older adults and their families.
“I think what I enjoy most is that I feel I can make a difference, even if it’s just a little bit,” Cimarolli told writer Eliza Mattson.
HOW CLIMATE CHANGE AFFECTS OLDER ADULTS
The LTSS Center’s research on climate change seemed particularly relevant in September when dual hurricanes bore down on the southeast portion of the nation. That’s when Skilled Nursing News interviewed researcher Natasha Bryant, who leads the center’s ongoing efforts to study the impact of climate-related emergencies on older adults.
Bryant told writer Zahida Siddiqi that chronic health conditions, mobility issues, and cognitive impairments make older adults particularly vulnerable during climate-related emergencies because these conditions can severely limit their ability to respond to disasters independently.
In 2022, Bryant was the lead author of a research report on The Impact of Climate Change: Why Older Adults are Vulnerable. In 2024, she and LTSS Center Co-Director Robyn Stone were among the co-authors of a chapter on climate change and older adults that was included in Climate Justice and Public Health, a book from the University of Massachusetts Press.
“One of the things we’ve been seeing more of during these natural disasters and events is that people are not really thinking about the needs of older adults,” Bryant told Skilled Nursing News. “Government agencies have emergency preparedness plans, but a lot of times there’s nothing specific to the older adult population. Even the public health departments are not necessarily thinking about what are some of the needs of those older adults.”
FINANCIAL INSECURITY OF OLDER ADULTS
New research from the National Council on Aging (NCOA) and the LTSS Center paints a concerning picture of financial preparedness among older Americans.
The updated analysis, released in August, found that 80% of Americans 60 and older continue to have very few resources to pay for long-term care or weather financial emergencies. While older adults’ incomes and the net value of their homes increased slightly from 2018 to 2020, the value of their financial assets and total wealth decreased.
“These findings certainly show that despite gains in income, many millions of older adults continue to live on the edge,” says Marc Cohen, co-author of the report and co-director of the LTSS Center. “This reality highlights just how important it is to make sure that our social safety net programs are preserved and strengthened.”
Check out the August 2024 update to the ongoing research conducted by Cohen and fellow researchers Jane Tavares and Maryssa Pallis.
EVALUATION OF THE MOVING FORWARD COALITION
The Moving Forward Nursing Home Quality Coalition had a challenging agenda when it was launched in 2022 with support from the John A. Hartford Foundation. A new report from the LTSS Center details how members felt the coalition met that challenge.
The coalition was charged with advancing recommendations included in The National Imperative to Improve Nursing Home Quality, a groundbreaking report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM). For two years, stakeholders with professional and personal experience in long-term care worked on seven committees tasked with developing, testing, and promoting nine action plans to address NASEM recommendations.
LTSS Center researchers surveyed and interviewed coalition members to understand their experiences working on the coalition’s seven committees. The survey and interviews helped researchers assess:
- The challenges associated with committee work: These challenges were generally related to tackling large and sometimes overwhelming systemic issues that have historically been difficult to change, agreeing on priorities and navigating competing interests, narrowing down goals on which to focus, and ensuring that their work could be completed in the project’s two-year time frame.
- Positive experiences associated with the work: These experiences centered around discussing and collaborating with fellow committee members, building consensus, focusing on common goals, contributing to meaningful nursing home reform, learning new information, and working with Moving Forward leadership staff.
- Recommendations for improving future work: These recommendations included increasing representation among nursing home residents and direct care workers, organizing in-person working sessions, and focusing on fewer targeted projects as a coalition.
Review the evaluation findings, the NASEM report, and the coalition’s nine action plans.