Participant Overview

Welcome! The National Dementia Workforce Study collects 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. 

If you have been invited to take a survey, we hope that you will participate. Nearly everyone who provides care for older adults in the U.S. is caring for people with mild cognitive impairment or dementia, so we really want to hear from you.

Four surveys are 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.

Survey participation in NDWS is by invitation and invitees are randomly selected. However, we want to engage with as many home care providers as possible. If you work for a home care organization that is interested in partnering with NDWS, email us at info@ndws.org.

Our basic aim is that the surveys and associated research are used to improve dementia care. With less than 30 minutes of your time, your voice can make a big impact. You will receive a gift card to thank you for your participation.

The privacy of the information we collect is very carefully protected and your answers – or even that you have participated in NDWS – are not shared with your employer. To keep your information as confidential as possible, we label your survey with a code, rather than your name or any other details that could be used to identify you. All published data is de-identified because the information that could be used to identify you is removed (for example, your name). In addition, we will never share any of your personal information with the government. 

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.

The Institutional Review Boards of the University of Michigan Medical School (IRBMED) provides ethical oversight for the study under Study ID #HUM00253596.

Find answers to frequently asked questions below. If you have questions about taking the survey, please see "How do I participate?" in the FAQs.

NDWS is endorsed and supported by several national organizations. Read why they support NDWS.