Courtney Van Houtven PhD

Dr. Courtney Van Houtven is a Professor in The Department of Population Health Science, Duke University School of Medicine and Duke-Margolis Institute for Health Policy.  She is also a Research Scientist in Health Services Research and Development in Primary Care at the Durham Veteran’s Administration. Dr. Van Houtven’s aging and economics research interests encompass long-term care financing, intra-household decision-making, informal care, and end-of-life care. She examines how family caregiving affects health care utilization, expenditures, health and work outcomes of care recipients and caregivers. She is also interested in understanding how best to support family caregivers to optimize caregiver and care recipient outcomes.

In an R-01 from The National Institutes of Nursing Research, NIH, Dr. Van Houtven examined the relationship between family structure, informal caregiving, and long-term care insurance (2011-2014). She recently completed an RCT testing the effectiveness of a skills training program for family caregivers of Veteran patients with functional and/or cognitive limitations who were referred to community-based long-term care, or HI-FIVES (VA HSR&D IIR 11-345). She is co-PI on the newly awarded QUERI Program Project, “Optimizing Function and Independence”, leading implementation of HI-FIVES at 8 sites nationally. She directs the VA-Cares Evaluation Center in the Durham COIN, which recently completed a national evaluation of the VA’s Program of Comprehensive Assistance for Family Caregivers (PCAFC), a program that supports family members who care for injured post-9/11 Veterans. She is a co-investigator on the NIA/NIH CARE IDEAS R01 study examining outcomes among care partners and persons with cognitive impairment and dementia (Vince Mor, PI) and on an R01 called "Informal Caregiver Burden in Advanced Cancer: Economic and Health Outcomes" (Siminoff and Matsuyama, Co-PIs).

Areas of expertise: Health Services Research and Health Economics