Informal care and health care use of older adults

Houtven, Courtney Harold Van; Norton, Edward C.

doi:10.1016/j.jhealeco.2004.04.008

Cited by 534 publications

(487 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…Death of the care recipient serves as a sorting variable that allows us to compare health effects of caregivers who are still caregiving, caregivers who have stopped caregiving, and non-caregivers who have also experienced the death of a parent. To examine the effects of the initial selection into caregiving, we use sibling characteristics as instrumental variables, as has been done in the current literature focusing on the cross-section (Ettner 1995;Stern 1995;Heidemann & Stern 1999;Engers & Stern 2002;Holmes & Van Houtven 2002;Van Houtven & Norton 2004;Charles & Sevak 2005;Heitmuller 2007). By controlling for selection in and out of caregiving, this ensures that any observed health effects are not simply bereavement effects but can be attributed to caregiving, and will help ensure that our estimates are free of endogeneity bias or compounding factors.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Caring for Mom and Neglecting Yourself? The Health Effects of Caring for an Elderly Parent

Coe

Houtven

2008

SSRN Journal

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We examine the physical and mental health effects of providing care to an elderly mother on the adult child caregiver. We address the endogeneity of the selection in and out of caregiving using an instrumental variable approach, and carefully control for baseline health and work status of the adult child using fixed effects and Arellano-Bond estimation techniques. Continued caregiving over time increases depressive symptoms for married women and married men. In addition, the increase in depressive symptoms is persistent for married men. Depressive symptoms for single men and women are not affected by continued caregiving. There is a small protective effect on the likelihood (10%) of having any heart conditions among married women who continue caregiving.Robustness checks confirm that the increase in depressive symptoms and decrease in likelihood of heart conditions can be directly attributable to caregiving behavior, and not due to a direct effect of the death of the mother. The initial onset of caregiving, by contrast, has no immediate effects on physical or mental health for any subgroup of caregivers.3

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Caring for Mom and Neglecting Yourself? The Health Effects of Caring for an Elderly Parent

Coe

Houtven

2008

SSRN Journal

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“…Receipt of informal care reduces the probability of or delays nursing home entry. [96][97][98] However, the findings on the relationship between informal care and paid home care are mixed. Some researchers predict that informal care and paid home care are substitutes, 98,99 whereas others find no significant effects.…”

Section: Future Research Opportunities and Policy Implications Researmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…[96][97][98] However, the findings on the relationship between informal care and paid home care are mixed. Some researchers predict that informal care and paid home care are substitutes, 98,99 whereas others find no significant effects. 100 We explored controlling for the use of formal caregiving in our regression model but did not find that adding this variable changed our results.…”

Section: Future Research Opportunities and Policy Implications Researmentioning

confidence: 99%

Projected Costs of Informal Caregiving for Cardiovascular Disease: 2015 to 2035: A Policy Statement From the American Heart Association

Dunbar¹,

Khavjou²,

Bakas³

et al. 2018

Circulation

202

102

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INTRODUCTION:In a recent report, the American Heart Association estimated that medical costs and productivity losses of cardiovascular disease (CVD) are expected to grow from $555 billion in 2015 to $1.1 trillion in 2035. Although the burden is significant, the estimate does not include the costs of family, informal, or unpaid caregiving provided to patients with CVD. In this analysis, we estimated projections of costs of informal caregiving attributable to CVD for 2015 to 2035. METHODS:We used data from the 2014 Health and Retirement Survey to estimate hours of informal caregiving for individuals with CVD by age/sex/race using a zero-inflated binomial model and controlling for sociodemographic factors and health conditions. Costs of informal caregiving were estimated separately for hypertension, coronary heart disease, heart failure, stroke, and other heart disease. We analyzed data from a nationally representative sample of 16 731 noninstitutionalized adults ≥54 years of age. The value of caregiving hours was monetized by the use of home health aide workers' wages. The per-person costs were multiplied by census population counts to estimate nation-level costs and to be consistent with other American Heart Association analyses of burden of CVD, and the costs were projected from 2015 through 2035, assuming that within each age/sex/racial group, CVD prevalence and caregiving hours remain constant. RESULTS:The costs of informal caregiving for patients with CVD were estimated to be $61 billion in 2015 and are projected to increase to $128 billion in 2035. Costs of informal caregiving of patients with stroke constitute more than half of the total costs of CVD informal caregiving ($31 billion in 2015 and $66 billion in 2035). By age, costs are the highest among those 65 to 79 years of age in 2015 but are expected to be surpassed by costs among those ≥80 years of age by 2035. Costs of informal caregiving for patients with CVD represent an additional 11% of medical and productivity costs attributable to CVD. CONCLUSIONS:The burden of informal caregiving for patients with CVD is significant; accounting for these costs increases total CVD costs to $616 billion in 2015 and $1.2 trillion in 2035. These estimates have important research and policy implications, and they may be used to guide policy development to reduce the burden of CVD on patients and their caregivers.

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“…Among these studies, La Sasso and Johnson (2002) find that frequent help from dependents' children reduces the probability of needing nursing home care within two years by 60 percent. Van Houtven and Norton (2004) use the dependent's number of children and whether the eldest child is female as instruments to estimate the substitutability between formal and informal care. Overall, their results, based on a nationally representative sample of noninstitutionalized people over 70 years old in the US, confirm substitutability between formal and informal care, except for postoutpatient surgery care.…”

Section: What Constitutes Ltc?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Long-Term Care in Latin America and the Caribbean? Theory and Policy Considerations

2017

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in Long-Term Care in Latin America and the Caribbean? Theory and Policy Considerations SEPTEMBER 2017Any opinions expressed in this paper are those of the author(s) and not those of IZA. Research published in this series may include views on policy, but IZA takes no institutional policy positions. The IZA research network is committed to the IZA Guiding Principles of Research Integrity. The IZA Institute of Labor Economics is an independent economic research institute that conducts research in labor economics and offers evidence-based policy advice on labor market issues. Supported by the Deutsche Post Foundation, IZA runs the world's largest network of economists, whose research aims to provide answers to the global labor market challenges of our time. Our key objective is to build bridges between academic research, policymakers and society. IZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author. services in Latin America. Demand for these services will rise as the region undergoes a swift demographic transition from its currently young population to a rapidly aging one, especially since the region's aging cohorts are more prone to experience a decline in their functional and physical abilities than elderly people elsewhere in the world. We argue that private insurance markets are ill-equipped to provide coverage to meet the need for LTC, while the amount of personal savings required to afford self-insurance is prohibitively high.We study how developed economies have dealt with the issue of LTC and pay special attention to the most salient features of their LTC programs. We then direct the discussion to Latin America, where LTC may not be an immediate priority, but governments are likely to encourage the development of LTC programs as demand for them steadily grows. In particular, policymakers are probably going to focus initially on LTC programs for the poor and the vulnerable, for whom LTC affordability is a greater problem. We therefore study how basic elements of policy design affect cost-effectiveness of LTC programs by means of a formal model. Our study shows that pro-poor programs are more cost effective when people have the option to receive cash subsidies, and the availability of in-kind and in-cash choices reduces program costs overall. We argue th...

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Informal care and health care use of older adults

Cited by 534 publications

References 36 publications

Caring for Mom and Neglecting Yourself? The Health Effects of Caring for an Elderly Parent

Caring for Mom and Neglecting Yourself? The Health Effects of Caring for an Elderly Parent

Projected Costs of Informal Caregiving for Cardiovascular Disease: 2015 to 2035: A Policy Statement From the American Heart Association

Long-Term Care in Latin America and the Caribbean? Theory and Policy Considerations

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