During January's Scholarship Series, Dr. Scott Beach discussed:
"Analyzing national datasets to inform policy and interventions regarding family support for persons with disability"
You can watch a recording of his talk, and download the slides used during the presentation.
During his talk, Dr. Beach discusses leveraging methodologically rigorous national surveys to examine family support / caregiving for persons with disabilities (PWDs) across the lifespan.
Analyses focus on:
- How disability impacts health and quality of life (QOL) outcomes of PWDs
- Detection of family supporters / caregivers at high risk for their own negative health / QOL outcomes
- How caregiving context and caregiver health and QOL outcomes impact their ability to provide quality care and potentially reduce or mitigate PWD negative outcomes.
This presentation provides an overview of available datasets to address these questions, noting the general lack of comprehensive data collection systems to fully address these issues. Two key data sources are described along with preliminary findings from these surveys: (1) the Behavioral Risk factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) caregiver module; and (2) The National Health & Aging Trends (NHATS) / National Study of Caregiving (NSOC).
Measurement issues and data collection strategies, including definition of “caregiver;” availability of dyadic (PWD and caregiver) data for linkage analyses; and ability to examine family support / caregiving across the lifespan of both PWDs and caregivers are discussed. Strategies for leveraging these data to inform policy and interventions for PWDs and family supporters / caregivers are discussed.