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Estimating the effects of informal care on carers' health, wellbeing and mortality

Jose-Luis Fernandez and Valentina Zigante, London School of Economics and Political Science, Julien Forder, University of Kent and Crispin Jenkinson, University of Oxford

(Project no. 0301554, previously 30155)

The purpose of this project is to investigate the impact providing informal care to and on mortality rates and what role family and local circumstances (such as service provision) have for carers' outcomes. The analysis incorporates econometric survival analysis of carers' mortality examining household characteristics, local authority level service characteristics and the characteristics of the LTC user (if living within the household). 

The micro-data are requested to contribute, through evidence of the effects of providing informal care on carers, to the more general purposes of the Quality and Outcomes Research Unit (QORU). The unit has been funded by the Department of Health in England to develop and promote appropriate use of evidence, both quantitative and qualitative, of need, quality and outcomes in relation to long-term health conditions, with resulting beneficial impact on the quality of health and social services. An evidence based understanding of effects on informal carers provides a useful input to the overall project, particularly due to the important role played by informal carers in the provision of long-term care in England.

The research is further motivated by the increased emphasis on personalisation through for example individual budgets, whereby family carers are often a key component of the care situation. The analysis aims at improving the understanding of individual effects of providing informal care and ultimately whether there is a 'caring effect' on mortality rates. Any effect has previously been found to be mitigated by the carer's characteristics and the level of strain in the care situation which the ONS LS will allow us to control for. Level of strain can be measured through household characteristics; economic situation, family size and composition, through local authority characteristics; and likelihood of receiving support services, technical support and respite care. Finally, when identifying strain, the health status of the individual being cared for (the LTC users) is crucial. In the ONS LS this can only be identified for co-residential carer/users where the user can be approximately identified when there is a household member suffering from a long-standing illness.

In summary, we aim to estimate mortality effects of providing informal care, controlling for individuals, household, LTC user and local authority characteristics.