New Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research-led study showed that more people are caregiving for family members.
According to Johns Hopkins’ release, “the number of family caregivers supporting older adults living in home and residential-care settings increased 32%, from 18.2 million to 24.1 million, between 2011 and 2022.” Dementia patients received almost 50% more hours of caregiving from family members and unpaid caregivers from 2011-2022.
Additionally, caregivers were found to be mostly male, younger, and higher educated in 2022. Despite more men being caregivers, “caregiving responsibilities continue to fall primarily to women and some subgroups at greater risk for negative consequences—including caregivers to persons with dementia and those who have limited financial resources.”
When surveyed about caregiver experience, task difficulty and balancing other responsibilities remained relatively the same.
The researchers call for improvements in caregiver support and a reduction in disparities.
The study was published in Health Affairs.
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health release on Newswise
