Dr. Cagle is a full professor at the University of Maryland School of Social Work with a substantive interest in improving care at the end of life. As a translational health services researcher, his efforts have focused on identifying effective models of care and support for dying patients and their families – and implementing those models into routine clinical practice. This includes efforts to minimize financial burden on families coping with life threatening illness. His research is informed by nearly a decade of clinical work as a hospice social worker. Dr. Cagle completed his PhD from Virginia Commonwealth University where his dissertation thesis explored the needs and experiences of informal caregivers of advanced cancer patients.
After being awarded his doctoral degree in 2008, he trained as an NIA-funded postdoctoral fellow at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Institute on Aging as well as the University of California, San Francisco, Division of Geriatrics. His current research examines financial burden experienced by families during life threatening illness, disparities in care at the end of life, psychosocial barriers to pain management, and improving palliative care outcomes in long-term care settings. His research has been supported by a number of public and private entities, including the University of Maryland School of Social Work Financial Social Work Initiative, the Hospice Foundation of America, the National Palliative Care Research Center, the John A. Hartford Foundation, the National Institute on Aging, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, and the Foundation for Care at the End of Life.