Courtney Harold Van Houtven
Professor in Population Health Sciences

Dr. Courtney Van Houtven is a Professor in The Department of Population Health Science, Duke University School of Medicine and Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy.  She is also a Research Career Scientist in The Center of Innovation to Accelerate Discovery and Practice Transformation (ADAPT), Durham Veterans Affairs Health Care System. Dr. Van Houtven’s aging and economics research interests encompass long-term care financing, intra-household decision-making, informal care, and home- and community-based services. 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.

Dr. Van Houtven  is co-PI on the QUERI Program Project, “Optimizing Function and Independence”, in which her caregiver skills training program developed as an RCT in VA, now called Caregivers FIRST, has been implemented at over 100 VA sites nationally. The team will evaluate how intensification of an implementation strategy changes adoption and sustainment. She directs the VA-Cares Evaluation Center in the Durham COIN, which evaluates the VA’s Caregiver Support Program, including its 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 in October 2021 launched a new R01 study as PI that will assess the value of "home time" for persons living with dementia and their caregivers (RF1 AG072364).


Areas of expertise: Health Services Research and Health Economics

Current Appointments & Affiliations

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