Participant Center

Welcome! The National Dementia Workforce Study is conducting annual surveys of the dementia care workforce across the United States to understand the challenges you face and learn how to better support you and the patients you care for. Our basic aim is that the surveys and associated research are used to improve dementia care.

If you have been invited to take a survey, we hope that you will participate. With less than 30 minutes of your time, your voice can make a big impact on how we understand the dementia care workforce. You will receive a gift card to thank you for your participation. Learn more below.

We are currently in Year 1 of the surveys, but each of the four will be conducted annually: Community Clinician, Nursing Home Staff, Assisted Living Staff, and Home Care Staff (which also includes home health). The staff surveys each also have an administrator survey to learn more about how each organization operates.

NDWS is led by investigators at the University of Michigan, the University of California, San Francisco, and other university and non-profit partners. The study is sponsored by the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health. The Alzheimer’s Association is also collaborating and welcomes your participation.

NDWS has partnered with trained data collectors to help us conduct the surveys. RTI International is our partner for the Community Clinician, Nursing Home Staff, and Assisted Living Staff surveys. DLH is our partner for the Home Care Staff survey.

Learn more about NDWS in this recent article in Generations Now from the American Society on Aging:  
"New Study Answers Urgent Need to Improve Dementia Care"

NDWS Survey FAQs

Community Clinician and Staff Survey

As the U.S. population ages, the need for quality dementia care will only increase. Your survey will provide valuable insights about your work experiences and answer critical questions about the challenges of caring for patients living with dementia. Survey data will be available for use by researchers, with the goal of improving dementia care practice and policy. You will receive an electronic gift card to thank you for completing the survey.

NDWS is designed to be nationally representative of the dementia care workforce and you were randomly selected to participate. NDWS participants represent the many different types of health care professionals who might provide care for persons living with dementia.

For the Community Clinician surveys, physicians, APRNs and PAs who billed Medicare for any patient with a dementia diagnosis were identified. Scientific sampling procedures were used to select a representative group of staff to survey.

For the Assisted Living, Nursing Home, and Home Care staff surveys, scientific sampling procedures were used to select facilities/agencies. Administrators were asked to provide staff lists, and a sample of staff was selected from each facility.

Access the online survey using the unique link that was emailed to you. The survey will take about 25 minutes to complete. You also may be invited to take a follow-up survey each year.
You will answer questions about your education, training, experience, employment status, working conditions, employment benefits, and dementia care knowledge and practices.
The privacy of the information we collect about you will be very carefully protected and used only for research purposes. Individual people and employers will NOT be identified or singled out in the results. Your answers will not be shared with your employer.

Reach out to our survey collection partners using the below contact information.

Community Clinician survey: Email ndws-cc@rti.org or call 866-881-2515.

Nursing Home and Assisted Living surveys: Email ndws@rti.org or call 866-881-2515.

Home Care survey: Email hc-ndws@ndwsinfo.com or call 855-443-2692.

 

Administrator Survey

As you know well, the need for quality dementia care continues to increase. Survey data will be available for use by researchers to create a better understanding of the challenges faced by the dementia care workforce in multiple settings.

To acknowledge your contributions, we are offering incentives to facilities/agencies who participate and for staff who take the survey. When both the administrator survey and staff roster upload are completed, your facility/agency will receive a monetary token of appreciation paid directly to the facility. In addition, employees who take the staff survey will receive an electronic gift card as a thank you.

Scientific sampling procedures were used to select facilities/agencies using data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (e,g., Nursing Home Compare), along with state licensing data.

We are asking administrators to participate in several ways:

1. Complete a 25-minute online administrator survey. Survey results will be aggregated, and facilities/agencies will NOT be identified in reporting.

2. Submit a list (roster) of facility/agency staff who might provide care to persons living with dementia.

The administrator survey will collect information about the agency size, population served, employee benefits, training programs, and types of staff.

We are asking facilities/agencies to submit name, email address, phone number, and job title for employees that provide care to people living with dementia. This information will be used to contact a sample of eligible employees and ask them to complete the staff survey.

You should have received information about how to easily submit staff rosters. If you need help, please contact us using the information below.

The privacy of the information we collect will be very carefully protected and used only for research purposes. Administrator survey results will be aggregated, and facilities/agencies will not be identified or singled out in reporting. Researchers wanting data access must go through a rigorous, multi-phase review process.

You can reach our survey collection partners using the below contact information.

Nursing Home and Assisted Living surveys: Email ndws@rti.org or call 866-881-2515.

Home Care survey: Email hc-ndws@ndwsinfo.com or call 855-443-2692.