The National Dementia Workforce Study: Overview

Meeting the care needs of people with dementia is a major public health and societal challenge. In 2020, over 6 million Americans had Alzheimer's disease or a related dementia, and this is projected to increase to 14 million by 2060. Their care needs incur nearly $30,000 more in mean annual costs per person compared to peers without dementia, and overall costs are expected to rise to $1.6 trillion within 15 years. People with dementia experience poorly coordinated care, high emergency department use, elevated hospitalization rates, and substantial variation in care. Gaps in training and high workforce turnover rates, particularly in home care and residential settings, may contribute to these outcomes. Providing quality care for dementia requires a well-trained, multidisciplinary workforce, but we lack a thorough understanding of the professionals currently providing care and the extent to which their training and composition influence outcomes. The National Dementia Workforce Study (NDWS) aims to investigate these issues on an unprecedented scale through a series of comprehensive annual surveys of dementia care providers across multiple care settings, rooted in a conceptual framework inspired by the Donabedian and Quality Health Outcomes models. Our goals are to generate a new data infrastructure and, by integrating novel survey data with other data sources, equip the research community with new tools to study relationships between workforce characteristics, care processes, and outcomes for people with dementia. Findings will provide insights into workforce dynamics, training needs, and care quality and inform strategies to improve dementia care policy, workforce capacity, and practice.