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Does country influence the health burden of informal care? An international comparison between Belgium and Great Britain

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  • Dujardin, Claire
  • Farfan-Portet, Maria-Isabel
  • Mitchell, Richard
  • Popham, Frank
  • Thomas, Isabelle
  • Lorant, Vincent

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to determine whether the association between the provision of informal care and the health status of caregivers is affected by the country of residence. We focus on two European countries, Belgium and Great Britain, and develop a methodology, which consists of matching a subset of areas from Britain with areas in Belgium that are demographically and socioeconomically similar. These pairs of areas are then used as fixed effects in logistic regressions of poor health. This allows us to take into account the influence of area type on health and to remove the influence of these local contextual characteristics from the estimated country effects. Results suggest that, although caregiving is more prevalent in Britain, the health burden associated with heavy caregiving activities is lower in Britain than in Belgium. This may be explained by the better targeting of long-term home care policies towards more severely dependent patients in Britain than in Belgium.

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  • Dujardin, Claire & Farfan-Portet, Maria-Isabel & Mitchell, Richard & Popham, Frank & Thomas, Isabelle & Lorant, Vincent, 2011. "Does country influence the health burden of informal care? An international comparison between Belgium and Great Britain," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 73(8), pages 1123-1132.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:73:y:2011:i:8:p:1123-1132
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.07.016
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    1. Van Houtven, Courtney Harold & Norton, Edward C., 2004. "Informal care and health care use of older adults," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(6), pages 1159-1180, November.
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    Cited by:

    1. Fiorillo, Damiano & Nappo, Nunzia, 2014. "Volunteering and perceived health. A European cross-countries investigation," MPRA Paper 72313, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2016.
    2. Bom, Judith & Stöckel, Jannis, 2021. "Is the grass greener on the other side? The health impact of providing informal care in the UK and the Netherlands," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 269(C).
    3. Tami Saito & Naoki Kondo & Koichiro Shiba & Chiyoe Murata & Katsunori Kondo, 2018. "Income-based inequalities in caregiving time and depressive symptoms among older family caregivers under the Japanese long-term care insurance system: A cross-sectional analysis," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(3), pages 1-13, March.
    4. Bauer, Jan Michael & Sousa-Poza, Alfonso, 2015. "Impacts of Informal Caregiving on Caregiver Employment, Health, and Family," IZA Discussion Papers 8851, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Kaschowitz, Judith & Brandt, Martina, 2017. "Health effects of informal caregiving across Europe: A longitudinal approach," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 173(C), pages 72-80.
    6. Uccheddu, Damiano & Gauthier, Anne H. & Steverink, Nardi & Emery, Tom, 2019. "The pains and reliefs of the transitions into and out of spousal caregiving. A cross-national comparison of the health consequences of caregiving by gender," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 240(C).
    7. Hareth Al-Janabi & Andrea Manca & Joanna Coast, 2017. "Predicting carer health effects for use in economic evaluation," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(9), pages 1-18, September.
    8. Normand Carpentier, 2013. "Entry Into a Care Trajectory," SAGE Open, , vol. 3(2), pages 21582440134, June.
    9. Flaminia Reale & Federica Segato & Daniela Tartaglini & Cristina Masella, 2020. "Action Research as a Method to Find Solutions for the Burden of Caregiving at Hospital Discharge," Systemic Practice and Action Research, Springer, vol. 33(2), pages 167-185, April.
    10. Melanie Wagner & Martina Brandt, 2018. "Long-term Care Provision and the Well-Being of Spousal Caregivers: An Analysis of 138 European Regions," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 73(4), pages 24-34.

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