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Household responses to public home care programs.
Mark Stabile1, Audrey Laporte, Peter C Coyte
1Department of Economics, University of Toronto and NBER, 150 Street George Street, Toronto, Ont., Canada M5S 3G7. mark.stabile@utoronto.ca
Journal of Health Economics
|January 24, 2006
Summary
Publicly funded home care services increase utilization and improve health outcomes. However, increased availability of these services is linked to a decrease in informal caregiving.
Area of Science:
- Health Economics
- Public Policy
- Sociology
Background:
- Household decision-making models are crucial for understanding care service utilization.
- The interplay between formal and informal caregiving requires further investigation.
- Publicly financed home care services significantly impact household resource allocation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To propose a choice-theoretic model of household decision-making for caregiving.
- To analyze the effects of public home care service availability on utilization, informal care, and health.
- To assess the association between public funding and home care outcomes.
Main Methods:
- Developed a choice-theoretic model for household care decisions.
- Utilized Canadian inter-provincial survey data (1992-1998).
- Matched survey data with home care funding information.
Main Results:
- Increased public home care funding correlated with higher service utilization.
- A decline in informal caregiving was observed with greater public service availability.
- Self-reported health status improved with increased access to public home care.
Conclusions:
- Publicly financed home care services are associated with increased formal care use.
- The expansion of public home care may reduce informal caregiving contributions.
- Enhanced access to public home care positively impacts health outcomes.