Caregiving Research, Education & Policy

About the Center for Caregiving Research, Education and Policy

The mission of the Center for Caregiving Research, Education and Policy (“Center for Caregiving”) is to enhance research on caregiving; train professionals and family caregivers to be as effective as possible; institute support programs integrating caregivers into existing health care services, long-term services and support systems; and inform public policy on the role of caregivers in state and national health care regulations.

Why caregiving?

Over 43 million adults provide unpaid care to an adult or child each year. These family caregivers provide the lion’s share of health care services and supports to individuals with chronic disease and disability, sometimes at great cost to their own physical, emotional, and financial health. Despite this, family caregivers rarely receive the recognition, training and support they need to carry out the essential roles they play in our health care system.

Who We Are

For more than three decades our multidisciplinary faculty and clinicians at the University of Pittsburgh and UPMC have been at the forefront of research documenting the impact of caregiving on family caregivers and the persons they care for, developing intervention strategies to mitigate the negative effects and enhance the positive effects of caregiving, and formulating policy to support caregivers. The Center consolidates and synergizes this expertise to accelerate the impact of our research on policy, health care systems, and the health of family members who are providing and receiving care.

The Center for Caregiving works with stakeholder organizations, foundations, individual philanthropists and governmental bodies to meet the most important challenges faced by caregivers in our health system. We bring together experts from across the health and social sciences to collaborate on epidemiologic, behavioral, health services, and applied policy research projects. Subject matter experts are supported by a team of political scientists, health economists, biostatisticians, survey research methodologists, information scientists, and regulatory experts who provide the methodological and technical infrastructure to carry out the Center’s work.

The Center's products are designed to deliver evidence-based analyses and recommendations to health policymakers at the national, state, and local level. What sets the Center apart is our breadth of expertise in caregiving across the lifespan and a unique approach to integrating research, education, and policy. Housed in the Pitt Health Policy Institute, the Center has direct access to the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, Health Sciences Library System and a health research faculty recognized as one of the finest in the nation. The Center is also directly affiliated with the University Center for Social Urban Research (UCSUR), which provides survey research and data analytic expertise, access to caregiver survey data, and access to local caregivers through research registries. To enrich our work, we collaborate extensively with many other academic institutions and research organizations. Please visit our research page to become familiar with just a few of our research initiatives.