Residential care communities with four to 25 beds, compared with larger communities, are more likely to have relatively younger residents; offer disease-specific programs for residents who have diabetes, cardiovascular disease and depression; have more residents who are Medicaid beneficiaries; have more residents with Alzheimer’s disease or depression; have more residents who need assistance with activities of daily living; and have fewer residents with cardiovascular disease.

On the other hand, as the number of beds in a community increases, the likelihood of chain affiliation increases, the use of electronic health records and computerized support for any electronic health information exchange increases and the percentage of residents who have fallen in the past 90 days increases.

That’s according to two data briefs recently released by the National Center for Health Statistics of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The briefs describe the operating and resident characteristics of the 30,200 residential care communities in the United States (as of 2014) — home to 835,200 residents — and compares these characteristics by community bed size.

More than 60% of residential care communities in 2014 had between four and 25 beds, but almost 70% of residents lived in communities with more than 50 beds, according to the NCHS.

The data briefs also contain state-level estimates for the characteristics.

The briefs:

Variation in Operating Characteristics of Residential Care Communities, by Size of Community: United States, 2014

Variation in Residential Care Community Resident Characteristics, by Size of Community: United States, 2014