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Our Mission

Elevate Home Health Care Workers

We aim to improve the status quo for undervalued and overlooked healthcare workers who provide care to people at home. Our multidisciplinary initiative seeks to elevate the value of home care workers while improving their working conditions and patient outcomes through rigorous research and community engagement.

Ariel Avgar, PhD

  • David M. Cohen ’73 Professor of Labor Relations, ILR School
  • Senior Associate Dean for Outreach and Sponsored Research
  • Director, Center for Applied Research on Work (CAROW)

Ariel Avgar is a Professor at the ILR School at Cornell University and Senior Associate Dean for Outreach and Sponsored Research.

Madeline Sterling, MD, MPH, MS

  • Associate Professor, Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine
  • Director, Initiative on Home Care Work

Dr. Madeline Sterling is a board certified general internist and a health services researcher in the Division of General Internal Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine.

Nicki Dell, PhD

  • Associate Professor, Information and Computer Science, Cornell Tech
  • Director of Technological Innovation, Initiative on Home Care Work

Nicki Dell is an Associate Professor at the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute at Cornell Tech and in the Information Science Department at Cornell University.

CAROW Examines How Unions Can Help Direct Care Workers

A pair of published papers released by the CAROW Initiative on Home Care Work shows that unionized direct care workers are likely to earn more money and are more likely to have employer-sponsored health care insurance and pension plans than non-unionized direct care workers.
A nurse tends to a wheelchair bound patient in her home
CAROW Examines How Unions Can Help Direct Care Workers

CAROW Affiliate Nicola Dell Named MacArthur Fellow

Cornell Chronicle
Nicola Dell has been awarded a 2024 MacArthur Foundation fellowship for her work developing technology interventions to address the needs of overlooked populations, including home health care aides and survivors of intimate partner violence.
Nicola Dell
CAROW Affiliate Nicola Dell Named MacArthur Fellow

SETS Educational Initiative Announced in Google Cyber NYC Program

Safe and Trustworthy AI in Home Health Care Work: A team including Nicola Dell, Deborah Estrin, Madeline Sterling and Ariel Avgar will investigate the trust, safety, and privacy challenges related to implementing artificial intelligence (AI) in home health care.
Cornell Tech
SETS Educational Initiative Announced in Google Cyber NYC Program
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Contact Us

reach out to our team

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homecarework@cornell.edu