About this Research Topic
The field of long-term care is under pressure internationally, with rising demand for services and concerns for financial sustainability. As a labour-intensive sector, the effectiveness and efficiency of the long-term care workforce are crucial. However, nearly all countries face challenges in recruiting, deploying, and retaining sufficient numbers of well-trained long-term care workers. High turnover and attrition rates are mainly attributed to dissatisfaction with working conditions, including low pay, excessive workload, long hours, and poor career prospects. If these issues are not adequately addressed, the current deficits in long-term care work and its quality will lead to an acute and unsustainable global care crisis.
This Research Topic aims to investigate diverse aspects of the long-term care workforce to support a sustainable and resilient system. The goal is to bring together studies that will lead to a greater understanding of the long-term care workforce and implications for future policy. The emphasis will be on evidence that advances the long-term care workforce research agenda based on well-designed studies and the use of innovative research designs and methods. High-quality contributions that address this global challenge and opportunities for insight, improvement, and innovation are especially welcome, particularly those with wider implications beyond a specific country context.
To gather further insights into the long-term care workforce, we welcome articles addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:
• recruitment and retention, including rewards and motivations;
• innovation and new models of care;
• well-being and emotional labour;
• organising and industrial relations;
• gender, race and class inequalities;
• data and technology.
The scope of this Research Topic covers staff groups directly providing care and support, working in people's homes or in residential settings, and those at the interface of health and care. We welcome both quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods studies.
This Research Topic aims to investigate diverse aspects of the long-term care workforce to support a sustainable and resilient system. The goal is to bring together studies that will lead to a greater understanding of the long-term care workforce and implications for future policy. The emphasis will be on evidence that advances the long-term care workforce research agenda based on well-designed studies and the use of innovative research designs and methods. High-quality contributions that address this global challenge and opportunities for insight, improvement, and innovation are especially welcome, particularly those with wider implications beyond a specific country context.
To gather further insights into the long-term care workforce, we welcome articles addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:
• recruitment and retention, including rewards and motivations;
• innovation and new models of care;
• well-being and emotional labour;
• organising and industrial relations;
• gender, race and class inequalities;
• data and technology.
The scope of this Research Topic covers staff groups directly providing care and support, working in people's homes or in residential settings, and those at the interface of health and care. We welcome both quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods studies.
Keywords: long-term care, workforce, social reproduction, marketisation, welfare, human resources, labour economics, wellbeing, organisation and management, inequalities, employment, innovation
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
