Naoko Muramatsu

Health care access, quality of care, long-term care policies, caregiving, health and well being of older adults, home care workforce, cross-cultural studies of health and aging, global aging. The issues I study lie at the intersection of public health, health services research, sociology, and gerontology. My research aims to improve the health of diverse aging populations and the quality of long-term care systems. I conduct community-based interventions as well as survey research, qualitative research (e.g., focus groups), and quantitative analysis of large national datasets. My research is on health and aging, focusing on social, cultural, policy and system factors that shape health and caregiving experience in aging individuals. my team seeks research assistants who want to be involved in all aspects of research including literature review, data entry, conducting surveys, research methods, etc. I am the principal investigator of studies funded by the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health. I have developed two related lines of research. In the first, I am developing cost-effective, sustainable community-based health promotion programs in partnership with older adults, caregivers, community-based organizations, and multi-disciplinary research teams. In my second line of research, I compare and contrast long-term care policies and key measures of well-being across societies, thereby enhancing our understanding of the policy options available to the United States and other countries.