An assisted living facility (ALF) is a place where someone can live, have access to social supports such as transportation, and receive assistance with the activities of daily living such as toileting and dressing. Despite the important role of ALFs, they are not required to be certified with Medicare and there is no public national database of these facilities. We present the first public dataset of ALFs in the United States, covering all 50 states and DC with 44,638 facilities and over 1.2 million beds. This dataset can help provide answers to existing public health questions as well as help those in need find a facility. The dataset was validated by replicating the results of a nationwide study of ALFs that uses closed data [4], where the prevalence of ALFs is assessed with respect to county-level socioeconomic variables related to health disparity such as race, disability, and income. To showcase the value of this dataset, we also propose a novel metric to assess access to community-based care. We calculate the average distance an individual in need must travel in order to reach an ALF. The dataset and all relevant code are available at github.com/antonstengel/assisted-living-data.

翻译：辅助生活设施（ALF）是指可供人居住、获得交通等社会支持，并接受如厕、穿衣等日常生活活动协助的场所。尽管ALF发挥着重要作用，但其无需获得Medicare认证，且目前尚无公开的全国性设施数据库。我们提出了美国首个ALF公共数据集，覆盖全部50个州及哥伦比亚特区，包含44,638个设施和超过120万张床位。该数据集不仅有助于解答现有公共卫生问题，还能帮助有需要者寻找合适的设施。我们通过复现一项使用封闭数据[4]的全国性ALF研究结果进行了验证——该研究评估了与健康差异相关的县级社会经济变量（如种族、残疾、收入）与ALF普及率的关联。为展示该数据集的实用价值，我们还提出了一种评估社区护理可及性的新指标，计算有需求者前往ALF的平均距离。数据集及相关代码均可从github.com/antonstengel/assisted-living-data获取。