Research Interests

As a health services researcher and a feminist political economist, I am a highly regarded public intellectual who is expert in international comparisons of aged care, long-term care quality working and care conditions, labour process, care work and social reproduction, data use to assess quality of care and work, ageing and healthy cities, and promising policy and practice approaches that support age equity and age inclusion. 

I have led multiple large teams in studies that pioneer international, comparative team-based rapid ethnography within mixed method, multi-site case studies of care for older adults.

My work contributes to the following substantive areas:

• Paid and unpaid care work and working conditions, comparing the division of labour internationally and structural violence due to under-staffing in nursing homes, which contributes to poor quality of care and work as well as a culture that normalizes workplace violence
• The complexities of using privately paid companions and families in long-term residential care as informal care working alongside facility staff, volunteers and students in nursing homes. 
• Debates about how regulatory regimes impact front-line care for seniors through my international comparative studies, particularly taking up issues related to public stewardship, public reporting, data quality, and metrics and measurement. 
• Relational health and social care that shapes quality of life, care and work with older adults.
• Promising policy and practice level changes that can promote age equity and age inclusion, considering conditions of poverty, social isolation and marginalization — due to social locations of gender, sexuality, Indigeneity, racialization and ethnicity, migration and class — and big policy questions related to housing, public space, advocacy and voice, engagement, dignity, inclusion and the role of the state, non-profits and the market.