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.
Wave 1 Questionnaires and Sample Frame
Wave 1 survey data is available now. See the data collection protocol, fielding period, sample size, and respondent rates. (PDF, 118 KB)↗
Note: The Wave 1 survey data release does not contain data from the Home Care Staff survey.
Assisted Living
Wave 1 Questionnaires
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.
Wave 2 Questionnaires and Sample Frame
Wave 2 surveys went into the field in April 2025. Wave 2 includes new respondents and follow-up surveys with some Wave 1 staff respondents. The follow-up surveys below include questions for staff still in their job and respondents no longer in their job.
Community Clinician
Wave 2 Questionnaires
The short form survey was slightly revised and sent as a follow-up to non-respondents from the initial survey invitations.
Nursing Home
Wave 2 Questionnaires
Assisted Living
Wave 2 Questionnaires
Home Care
Wave 2 Questionnaires
The Home Care Independent Staff survey was designed as a pilot in Wave 2 for home care workers who don’t work for an agency. The sample came from a list of individual home care workers in Michigan. If this effort is successful, it may be expanded in future waves.
Crosswalks
- Community Clinician Crosswalk (30 KB)↗
- Staff Survey Crosswalk (61 KB)↗
- Administrator Survey Crosswalk (24 KB)↗
- HC Independent Staff Pilot Crosswalk (31.5 KB)↗
Download the crosswalks to see the surveys at a glance. The crosswalks also include sources for questions adapted from other surveys. If no source is listed, the question was developed by the NDWS survey team.
In the Staff Survey Crosswalk, you will find tabs for baseline respondents completing the survey for the first time, reinterviews of Wave 1 respondents still in their job, and reinterviews of Wave 1 respondents no longer in their job.