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

Dujardin, C., Farfan-Portet, M.-I., Mitchell, R. , Popham, F. , Thomas, I. and Lorant, V. (2011) Does country influence the health burden of informal care? An international comparison between Belgium and Great Britain. Social Science and Medicine, 73(8), pp. 1123-1132. (doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.07.016)

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Publisher's URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.07.016

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.<p></p>

Item Type:Articles
Status:Published
Refereed:Yes
Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID:Popham, Dr Frank and Mitchell, Professor Rich
Authors: Dujardin, C., Farfan-Portet, M.-I., Mitchell, R., Popham, F., Thomas, I., and Lorant, V.
College/School:College of Medical Veterinary and Life Sciences > School of Health & Wellbeing > Public Health
Journal Name:Social Science and Medicine
Publisher:Elsevier
ISSN:0277-9536
ISSN (Online):1873-5347
Published Online:02 August 2011
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