Our research promotes practices, products, and policies that address occupational safety, environmental safety, and patient safety in both home care and hospitals.

What's New

The Safe Home Care Project has developed a series of fact sheets for the Home Care workforce on managing COVID-19 exposure risks as well as safer practices related to the use of cleaning and disinfecting products - Safe Home Care Fact Sheets

• A printable trifold brochure called Safe Home Care During COVID-19: Tips for Personal Care Attendants (PCAs), Caregivers and Consumers is now available in English and Spanish:
• Safe Home Care During COVID-19: Tips for Personal Care Attendants (PCAs), Caregivers and Consumers - English language (pdf)
• Safe Home Care During COVID-19: Tips for Personal Care Attendants (PCAs), Caregivers and Consumers - Spanish language (Español) (pdf)

This brochure includes information on recognizing COVID-19 symptoms, a symptom checklist and ways to avoid spreading the COVID-19 virus and other germs that can cause disease.


• The Safe Home Care Project and the Betsy Lehman Center for Patient Safety surveyed Massachusetts home care agencies to assess the impact of COVID-19 in the early phase of the pandemic, March-June, 2020.
  • Details of the survey are published open access in the journal Home Health Care Management & Practice: Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Home Health and Home Care Agency Managers, Clients, and Aides: A Cross-Sectional Survey, March to June, 2020
  • A report with highlights of the survey and policy implications for Massachusetts was issued December 2020: The Impact of COVID-19 on Home Health and Home Care in Massachusetts (pdf)
• The goals of our Safe Home Care research, funded by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), include: Producing guidance for clients and families on safe home care practices; Developing safety tools and techniques that can be introduced to clients when they are assessed for home care visits; Preventing infection and other health and safety hazards; Evaluating whether new safety tools are beneficial to aides, clients and home care partners - Researcher to Take on Challenge of Home Care Safety for Workers, Patients Press Release

Selected Publications

For a list of all publications see the "Publications page" in the navigation menu.

• “It changed everything”: The safe Home care qualitative study of the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on home care aides, clients, and managers - BMC Journal of Research in October 2021.
• Assessment of home care aides’ respiratory exposure to total volatile organic compounds and chlorine during simulated bathroom cleaning: An experimental design with conventional and “green” products - Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene in May 2021
• Healthy Aging Requires a Healthy Home Care Workforce: the Occupational Safety and Health of Home Care Aides - Current Environmental Health Reports in May 2021.
• Impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on home health and home care agency managers, clients, and aides: A cross-sectional survey, March to June, 2020 – Home Health Care Management & Practice in December 2020.
• “That’s not my job”: A mixed methods study of challenging client behaviors, boundaries, and home care aide occupational safety and health - American Journal of Industrial Medicine in December 2019.
• Home care aides' experiences of verbal abuse: a survey of characteristics and risk factors - Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine in July 2019.
• Ergonomic evaluation of slide boards used by home care aides to assist client transfers - Ergonomics in July 2018.
• Cleaning and disinfection in home care: A comparison of 2 commercial products with potentially different consequences for respiratory health - American Journal of Infection Control in April 2018.
• Risk of Sharps Injuries to Home Care Nurses and Aides: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis - Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine in November 2017.
• Safety Risks Among Home Infusion Nurses and Other Home Health Care Providers - Journal of Infusion Nursing in July/August 2017.
• Risk of sharps injuries among home care aides: Results of the Safe Home Care survey - American Journal of Infection Control in April 2017.
• Occupational health of home care aides: results of the safe home care survey - Occupational and Environmental Medicine in April 2016.