Opportunity Costs for Families Providing Home and Community Base Dementia Care. Can We Have a Real Discussion about Policy?

Jang and Chen's report, “National Estimates of Incremental Absenteeism Costs Associated with Adult Children of Parents with Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementia (ADRD),” provides important estimates for an understudied category of “opportunity costs” for work absenteeism among children providing home and commun ity based care (HCBC) for an ADRD parent verses those caring for a non-ADRD parent. (1) Using an elegantly designed econometric model and merged data from the 2015 through 2021 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS), the investigators described sociodemographic characteristics of each HCBC caregive r group; modeled odds of missing work; days of lost work; and calculated work absenteeism costs weighted by the average income of six occupations identified from the US Bureau of Labor Statistic codes identified in the MEPS.
Source: The American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry - Category: Geriatrics Authors: Tags: Editorial Source Type: research