American caregivers face worsening health problems

The health of American caregivers is worse than that of adults who do not have responsibility for caring for someone with a health condition or disability, research shows published in the August 29 issue of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Greta Kilmer of the CDC in Atlanta and her colleagues used data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System from 2015 to 2016 and from 2021 to 2022 to compare changes in the prevalence of 19 health indicators among caregivers and non-caregivers.

The researchers found that caregivers experienced improvements in the prevalence of four health indicators (current smoking, physical inactivity, no health insurance, and being unable to see a doctor due to cost), while six worsened (mental distress, depression, asthma, obesity, and having one or more chronic physical conditions). For both caregivers and non-caregivers, some health indicators, such as smoking, improved, although smoking prevalence remained higher for caregivers (16.6 versus 11.7 percent). Similarly, both groups experienced increases in the prevalence of lifetime depression, and prevalence remained higher among caregivers (25.6 versus 18.6 percent). Compared with non-caregivers, age-adjusted estimates for caregivers in 2021 to 2022 were unfavorable for 13 of the 19 health indicators.

“Strategies to support caregivers are available and integrating them with existing programs targeting mental health and chronic disease in this population may improve caregiver well-being,” the authors write.

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