Dr. Lei Chen is an assistant professional researcher at the UCSF Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies. She is a mixed-methods health services researcher whose work focuses on long-term services and supports, immigrants’ access to health care, and the direct care workforce, with particular attention to foreign-born workers who care for people living with dementia.

Dr. Chen’s research integrates quantitative and qualitative methods to examine how policies, working conditions, and social and structural factors shape access to care and the experiences of care recipients and direct care workers. She has extensive experience conducting quantitative analyses using large national and state-level datasets, including the American Community Survey (ACS), Health and Retirement Study (HRS), National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS), National Dementia Workforce Study (NDWS), and California Health Interview Survey (CHIS). She is also developing a harmonized data compendium of state-level policies and programs to examine policy environments affecting the direct care workforce. Her qualitative research includes multilingual interviews and community-engaged research with immigrant populations, caregivers, and rural and underserved communities. By integrating survey, policy, and qualitative data, she seeks to connect population-level patterns with the lived experiences of health care workers, caregivers, and care recipients navigating health and long-term care systems.

Dr. Chen's emerging research program focuses on foreign-born direct care workers in dementia care. With support from the Alzheimer’s Association, she is working on a mixed-methods study examining how working conditions, job stability, and policy environments shape the caregiving experiences of foreign-born direct care workers. The broader goal of this research is to generate actionable evidence to strengthen the direct care workforce and improve care and support for people living with dementia.