PROBLEM MEMORANDUM
TO: Janet Collins, Ph.D. Director, CDC’s National Center for
Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion
FROM: Joanna Herbaczewska, MPA/ Nursing Administration, Student, Baruch College, School of Public and International Affairs, Hunter – Bellevue Nursing School.
SUBJECT: Promote the Health and Well-being of Caregivers
DATE: September 8, 2016
Caregivers as a part of community play important role in the welfare of individuals. Caregivers often take care of frail and ill family members, often forgetting about their own life and health. They need financial, emotional support as well as physical and mental health assessment and interventions. The health care system is mainly focused on patients; caregivers who are slowly burning out can slip by unnoticed until it is too late to ask for help. Furthermore, caregiver’s needs are often overlooked by healthcare providers. They have some support from The National Alliance for Caregivers which lists various resources on its website, including research on the impact of caregiving. Also, there are sites like Caring .com and Family Caregiver Alliance which provide online group support. There is a need for national policy which would provide support for caregivers: emotional, financial and health-wise.
The new partnership between CDC and Kimberly-Clark Corporation was created in 2007 to promote the health and well-being of caregivers and implementing evidence-based caregiver interventions in “real-world” settings. (www.cdc.gov/aging/ and www.kimberly-clark.com.) Application of this framework can help practitioners and researchers anticipate pertinent issues as they engage in planning, conducting, or evaluating caregiver intervention programs and policies. However more interventions and support is needed to be done as caregivers provides as much as much as estimated $257–$389 billion worth of unpaid care annually to persons of all ages with disabilities and chronic illness. Still there is no sufficient data to estimate the health of caregivers or health effects of caregiving. Pilot survey was done in North Carolina and analyzed. From the survey researchers learned following: most of the caregivers were woman (59.1%), the average hours provided for caregiving were estimated about 20.1 hours per week. Most caregivers reported their mental health was “not good” due to caregiver’s burn out. Other issues included: health declining rapidly, financial strain, not enough time for other family members, affects work, reported sustaining an injury while caregiving. (http://www.cdc.gov)
What needs to be done to help caregivers is to create more support for them. Support financially, as they provide free caregiver services is one of the interventions. Furthermore, screening for any health issues for them should be affordable and in timely matter. Providers who take care of ill and older adults should also screen caregivers for any health issues including mental health and provide referral appropriately. Creating more support groups who would direct burn out caregivers to appropriate services. Additionally more research should be done to find out what is needed from healthcare providers and what Healthcare Policy’s should be created to assist caregivers on national level.
References:
Characteristics and Health of Caregivers and Care Recipients — North Carolina, 2005. (2007, May/June). Retrieved September 13, 2016, from http://www.cdc.gov/
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Kimberly-Clark Corporation. Assuring Healthy Caregivers, A Public Health Approach toTranslating Research into Practice: The RE-AIM Framework. Neenah, WI: Kimberly-Clark Corporation, 2008. Available at: www.cdc.gov/aging/ and www.kimberly-clark.com.