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How Many Older Informal Caregivers Are There in Europe? Comparison of Estimates of Their Prevalence from Three European Surveys

Informal caregivers are people providing some type of unpaid, ongoing assistance to a person with a chronic illness or disability. Long-term care measures and policies cannot take place without taking into account the quantitatively crucial role played by informal caregivers. We use the European Hea...

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Autores principales: Tur-Sinai, Aviad, Teti, Andrea, Rommel, Alexander, Hlebec, Valentina, Lamura, Giovanni
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7767284/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33352669
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17249531
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author Tur-Sinai, Aviad
Teti, Andrea
Rommel, Alexander
Hlebec, Valentina
Lamura, Giovanni
author_facet Tur-Sinai, Aviad
Teti, Andrea
Rommel, Alexander
Hlebec, Valentina
Lamura, Giovanni
author_sort Tur-Sinai, Aviad
collection PubMed
description Informal caregivers are people providing some type of unpaid, ongoing assistance to a person with a chronic illness or disability. Long-term care measures and policies cannot take place without taking into account the quantitatively crucial role played by informal caregivers. We use the European Health Interview Survey (EHIS), the European Quality of Life Survey (EQLS), and the Study on Health and Ageing in Europe (SHARE) to measure the prevalence of informal caregivers in the European population, and analyze associated socio-demographic factors. This rate ranges between about 13 percent in Portugal and Spain, and more than 22 percent in Luxembourg, Belgium, and Denmark. It declines in older age groups and, on average, is lower in men than in women in all countries studied, and lower among the poorly educated compared to those with higher levels of education. However, large variance was observed in the average share of informal caregivers for most countries between the three surveys. Our findings, estimated through the three surveys, reveal common trends, but also a series of disparities. Additional research will be needed to enable policy makers to access a richer and more harmonized body of data, allowing them to adopt truly evidence-based and targeted policies and interventions in this field.
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spelling pubmed-77672842020-12-28 How Many Older Informal Caregivers Are There in Europe? Comparison of Estimates of Their Prevalence from Three European Surveys Tur-Sinai, Aviad Teti, Andrea Rommel, Alexander Hlebec, Valentina Lamura, Giovanni Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Informal caregivers are people providing some type of unpaid, ongoing assistance to a person with a chronic illness or disability. Long-term care measures and policies cannot take place without taking into account the quantitatively crucial role played by informal caregivers. We use the European Health Interview Survey (EHIS), the European Quality of Life Survey (EQLS), and the Study on Health and Ageing in Europe (SHARE) to measure the prevalence of informal caregivers in the European population, and analyze associated socio-demographic factors. This rate ranges between about 13 percent in Portugal and Spain, and more than 22 percent in Luxembourg, Belgium, and Denmark. It declines in older age groups and, on average, is lower in men than in women in all countries studied, and lower among the poorly educated compared to those with higher levels of education. However, large variance was observed in the average share of informal caregivers for most countries between the three surveys. Our findings, estimated through the three surveys, reveal common trends, but also a series of disparities. Additional research will be needed to enable policy makers to access a richer and more harmonized body of data, allowing them to adopt truly evidence-based and targeted policies and interventions in this field. MDPI 2020-12-19 2020-12 /pmc/articles/PMC7767284/ /pubmed/33352669 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17249531 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Tur-Sinai, Aviad
Teti, Andrea
Rommel, Alexander
Hlebec, Valentina
Lamura, Giovanni
How Many Older Informal Caregivers Are There in Europe? Comparison of Estimates of Their Prevalence from Three European Surveys
title How Many Older Informal Caregivers Are There in Europe? Comparison of Estimates of Their Prevalence from Three European Surveys
title_full How Many Older Informal Caregivers Are There in Europe? Comparison of Estimates of Their Prevalence from Three European Surveys
title_fullStr How Many Older Informal Caregivers Are There in Europe? Comparison of Estimates of Their Prevalence from Three European Surveys
title_full_unstemmed How Many Older Informal Caregivers Are There in Europe? Comparison of Estimates of Their Prevalence from Three European Surveys
title_short How Many Older Informal Caregivers Are There in Europe? Comparison of Estimates of Their Prevalence from Three European Surveys
title_sort how many older informal caregivers are there in europe? comparison of estimates of their prevalence from three european surveys
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7767284/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33352669
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17249531
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