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H2020Individual fellowship2020–2022

LTCpolicies · Optimizing access to long-term care? Impact of long-term care policies on use, health and equity among the elderly

Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Duration
2020-09-01 → 2022-08-31
EU contribution
€187,572
Participants
1
Scheme
MSCA-IF

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Results in brief

Optimizing access to long-term care? Impact of long-term care policies on use, health and equity among the elderly

OECD countries face the aging of their population, a demographic trend that will amplify in the next decades. This causes a substantial increase in the number of the disabled elderly, who require assistance with activities of daily living. Reconciling the societal concern for ensuring appropriate long-term care (LTC) to the disabled elderly and the pressure on public spending is a major challenge that all OECD countries struggle with. Governments aim at containing rising costs of formal LTC by setting eligibility criteria and cost-sharing rules, and encourage the provision of LTC by relatives (informal care). Such measures may however impact the efficiency and equity of LTC policies. How does the design of LTC policies affect LTC use? What are the downstream effects LTC use may have on health and health care use? To what extent are informal caregivers involved alongside formal caregivers? And how does the aggregate value of informal care compare with that of formal LTC? This project provides robust empirical evidence on these questions by making use of conceptual and empirical tools from applied economics. Identification of causal relationships is achieved by exploiting exogenous variation (e.g. induced by a reform). Furthermore, the project leverages high-quality, individual-level data, which combine surveys and administrative sources. It relies on data, policies and institutional contexts from France and the Netherlands.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union

Project objective

OECD countries face the aging of their population, a demographic trend that will amplify in the next decades. This causes a substantial increase in the number of the disabled elderly, who require assistance with activities of daily living. Reconciling the societal concern for ensuring appropriate long-term care (LTC) to the disabled elderly and the pressure on public spending is a major challenge that all OECD countries struggle with. Governments aim at containing rising LTC costs by setting eligibility criteria and cost-sharing rules; such measures may however impact the efficiency and equity of LTC policies. How does the design of LTC policies affect LTC use at both the individual level and across population groups? And what are the downstream effects LTC use may have on health and health care use? This proposal aims at providing robust empirical evidence on these questions by making use of conceptual and measurement tools from applied economics. Identification of causal relationships will be achieved by exploiting quasi-experimental variation in LTC use and innovative individual-level data, which combine survey and administrative sources.My research will yield three main contributions to the economic literature and to our understanding of LTC policies. First, I will provide unprecedented insight on the impact of co-payments on nursing home entry in a European country, namely the Netherlands. Second, I will assess whether the under-use of LTC may deteriorate health and increase health care services. Finally, I will provide a comprehensive assessment of socio-economic inequalities in the use of LTC and its financing in France.This proposal tackles research questions that the international literature has left pending, in the context of two countries whose ongoing policy debates on LTC embody the trade-off faced by all European governments. It thus aims at contributing to evidence-based decisions in the field of LTC.

Original text from CORDIS.

Participants

  • ERASMUS UNIVERSITEIT ROTTERDAM · RotterdamCoordinatorNetherlands

Links

Data: CORDIS, © European Union