Surveys
NDWS collects annual surveys of community clinicians, and nursing home, assisted living, and home care staff. Staff surveys ask questions across a variety of domains, including demographics; education, training, and experience; employment status; dementia care knowledge, attitudes and practices; and worker outcomes.
The staff surveys also have an administrator survey that includes questions related to facility characteristics, resident characteristics, staffing, training, and care practices.
Surveys are nationally representative. They also follow how the workforce changes over time by tracking entrances and exits. Surveys will be updated and deployed annually to include new survey items from researchers and stakeholder groups.
Updated data will be released each year. Current funding supports annual surveys through 2028.
Note: The Wave 1 survey data release will not contain data from the Home Care Staff survey.
Wave 1 Questionnaires and Sample Frame
Wave 1 surveys were fielded August 2024 to March 2025. Data will be available by July 1, 2025.
Crosswalk: Download the Survey Source Crosswalk to see all seven surveys at a glance and how they compare. The crosswalk also includes sources for questions adapted from other surveys. If no source is listed, the question was developed by the NDWS survey team.
Masked variables: View a draft list of masked variables to see which questions will be masked or modified in the public use files (PUFs) to safeguard respondent privacy.