Rozario, Philip A.

In Singapore, policy makers expect families to remain actively involved in the care of their frail older relatives, as manifestly expressed in its Many Helping Hands approach to long-term care. To enable families to fulfill this expectation, the government has enacted policies that encourage the hiring of foreign domestic workers (FDWs) to complement or supplement informal caregiving efforts. Using the Andersen Behavioral Model, we were interested in identifying caregiver and care receiver characteristics that might predict the hiring of FDWs.

In this study, the authors examined how geographic location might differently influence social support and self-rated health for rural and urban African American women caregivers. They used cross-sectional data from 253 urban and 263 rural women primary caregivers. Controlling for key demographic factors, the authors regressed caregivers’ self-rated health on social engagement, structural, and functional aspects of social support for urban and rural caregivers separately. The perception of family functioning was positively associated with urban and rural caregivers’ self-rated health.