Family Care Givers
Family caregivers are busy. In the US, at least 52 million informal and family caregivers provide care to someone aged 20 or older who is ill or disabled. 34 million people provide care to adults who are 50 or older, while the average age of a family caregiver is 47. 78% of adults in the US who receive long-term care at home get all their care from unpaid family and friends who provide an average of 21 hours of care per week, and the value of such care was estimated to have been at least $360 billion in 2006.
Working caregivers, especially women, suffer work-related challenges due to their varied roles. Female caregivers are likely to spend at least 12 years out of the workforce raising children and caring for an elderly relative or friend, making themselves 2.5 times as likely to live in poverty when they became elderly compared to working women who had not been caregivers in their lifetime.
Caregiving can shorten your life. One study of elderly spousal caregivers found that providers who experience stress have a 63% higher mortality rate than non-caregivers of the same age, and studies show that 1/3 of family caregivers provide intensive care to others while they are living with only fair to poor physical health themselves. In more than half of cases where a person cares for their spouse or partner, within four years after the cared-for person dies the care provider is also deceased.
Family caregivers are private, often lacking financial resources and not belonging to a cohesive organization. Since 1992, HCEI has worked with family and informal care providers, reminding them of ways to identify stress and respond in health ways.
What has your organization and community done to support and celebrate family caregivers? HCEI would like to collaborate.
Working caregivers, especially women, suffer work-related challenges due to their varied roles. Female caregivers are likely to spend at least 12 years out of the workforce raising children and caring for an elderly relative or friend, making themselves 2.5 times as likely to live in poverty when they became elderly compared to working women who had not been caregivers in their lifetime.
Caregiving can shorten your life. One study of elderly spousal caregivers found that providers who experience stress have a 63% higher mortality rate than non-caregivers of the same age, and studies show that 1/3 of family caregivers provide intensive care to others while they are living with only fair to poor physical health themselves. In more than half of cases where a person cares for their spouse or partner, within four years after the cared-for person dies the care provider is also deceased.
Family caregivers are private, often lacking financial resources and not belonging to a cohesive organization. Since 1992, HCEI has worked with family and informal care providers, reminding them of ways to identify stress and respond in health ways.
What has your organization and community done to support and celebrate family caregivers? HCEI would like to collaborate.
|
HCEI Family Care Collaborators Include:
|
"We spent our whole lives taking care of our parents and we forgot to build lives of our own"
-- Christopher Durang, from his play
"Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike"