Katherine Ornstein

PhD, MPH, BA

Director, Center for Equity in Aging

Katherine Ornstein is a professor in the School of Nursing at Johns Hopkins with joint appointments in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Bloomberg School of Public Health and Division of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. She received her PhD in epidemiology from Columbia University where she was a predoctoral fellow in psychiatric epidemiology. Her work is focused on improving health and healthcare for older adults with serious illness and their caregivers with a focus on advancing equity. She is a recognized expert in home-based care delivery, family and paid caregiving, dementia care and health care delivery at the end-of-life. Her research, funded by the NIH and the CDC, includes work on the downstream economic effects of health care and bereavement on families and caregivers; the epidemiology of the homebound population; burden and cost in dementia caregiving; home-based palliative care; and frailty trajectories.

JHU Center Affiliation:
Center for Equity in Aging
Hopkins Economics of Alzheimer’s Disease & Service Center
Johns Hopkins Center on Aging & Health
Roger C. Lipitz Center for Integrated Health Care

Full CV

[email protected]

Specialties and Expertise

Aging
Big Data
Dementia
Disparities
End of Life
Equity
Gerontology
Palliative Care
Quantitative Research Methods/Statistics
Research Design
Social Determinants of Health

Publications

Hunt LJ, Morrison RS, Gan S, Espejo E, Boscardin WJ, Rodin R, Ornstein KA, Smith AK. Mortality and Function After Hip Fracture or Pneumonia in People With and Without Dementia. J Am Geriatr Soc. 2025 Jan 15. doi: 10.1111/jgs.19354. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 39812182.

Fenton AT, Blashill B, Revette AC, Mann A, Reblin M, Enzinger AC, Ornstein KA, Jain S, Manz CR, Tulsky JA, Wright AA. ‘You want to shield your kids’: Patients’ and their adult-children’s serious illness conversations. J Pain Symptom Manage. 2024 Dec 24:S0885-3924(24)01211-9. doi: 10.1016/j.jpainsymman.2024.12.014. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 39725045.

Salinger MR, Ornstein KA, Kleijwegt H, Brody AA, Leff B, Mather H, Reckrey J, Ritchie CS. Defining and Validating Criteria to Identify Populations Who May Benefit From Home-Based Primary Care. Med Care. 2025 Jan 1;63(1):27-37. doi: 10.1097/MLR.0000000000002085. Epub 2024 Oct 15. PMID: 39404637; PMCID: PMC11617084.

Kumar RG, Pomeroy ML, Ornstein KA, Juengst SB, Wagner AK, Reckrey JM, Lercher K, Dreer LE, Evans E, de Souza NL, Dams-O’Connor K. Home, but Homebound After Traumatic Brain Injury: Risk Factors and Associations With Nursing Home Entry and Death. Arch Phys Med Rehabil. 2024 Oct 5:S0003-9993(24)01265-6. doi: 10.1016/j.apmr.2024.09.012. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 39374687.

Reckrey JM, Kleijwegt H, Morrison RS, Nothelle S, Kelley AS, Ornstein KA. (2023) Paid Care for People with Functional Impairment and Serious Illness: Results from the Health and Retirement Study. J Gen Intern Med. 2023 Jun 22. doi: 10.1007/s11606-023-08262-9. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 37349637.

Marr J, Ritchie C, Leff B, Ornstein KA. Home-Based Medical Care Use In Medicare Advantage And Traditional Medicare In 2018. Health Aff (Millwood). 2023 Sep;42(9):1198-1202. doi: 10.1377/hlthaff.2023.00376. PMID: 37669486.

Pomeroy ML, Cudjoe TKM, Cuellar AE, Ihara ES, Ornstein KA, Bollens-Lund E, Kotwal AA, Gimm GW. (2023) Association of Social Isolation With Hospitalization and Nursing Home Entry Among Community-Dwelling Older Adults. JAMA Intern Med. 2023 Sep 1;183(9):955-962. doi: 10.1001/jamainternmed.2023.3064. PMID: 37486647; PMCID: PMC10366946.

Reckrey JM, Kim PS, Zhao D, Zhang M, Xu E, Franzosa E, Ornstein KA. (2022) Care disruptions among the homebound during the COVID-19 pandemic: an analysis of the role of dementia. J Am Geriatr Soc. 2022 Aug 23. doi: 10.1111/jgs.18008. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 35997146.

Ornstein, K.A., Wolff, J.L., Bollens-Lund, E., Rahman, O., Kelley, A.S., (2019). Spousal caregivers are caregiving alone in the last years of life. Health Affairs, 38(6):964-972, PMID 31158025.

Ornstein, K.A., Garrido, M.M., Siu, A.L., Bollens-Lund, E., Langa, K.M. & Kelley, A.S. (2018). Impact of in-hospital death on spending for bereaved spouses. Health Services Research, 53 Suppl 1:2696-2717, PMID: 29488621. PMCID: PMC6056590.

Ankuda, C. K., Leff, B., Ritchie, C. S., Siu, A. L., & Ornstein, K. A. (2021). Association of the COVID-19 Pandemic With the Prevalence of Homebound Older Adults in the United States, 2011-2020. JAMA Internal Medicine, 10.1001/jamainternmed.2021.4456.

2024 Excellence in Research Mentoring, School of Nursing, Johns Hopkins University

2023 Isabel Hampton Robb Distinguished Scholar, School of Nursing, Johns Hopkins University

2020 Fellow, Gerontological Society of America

2018 Dan Gilden Creative Investigator Award, American Academy of Home Care Medicine

2013 Research Scholar, American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine

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