Project Summary
In 2022, more than 6 million individuals suffered from Alzheimer's disease and related
dementia (ADRD) in the United States, and this figure is projected double to 12.7 million by
2050. As ADRD progresses, individuals experience cognitive decline and require significant
long-term care and help with essential daily activities. As the U.S. population ages, the demand
for elder care, especially for patients living with ADRD, is outpacing the supply. We propose
examining the different components of ADRD caregiving within a comprehensive framework by
using a novel modeling approach, macro-simulation. Using the family as a decision-making
unit, we will simulate individual- and family-level economic and well-being outcomes based on
the rich literature and datasets on ADRD caregiving and its impacts. We will then aggregate
these outcomes based on a structural macroeconomic model to assess the overall implications of
family care decisions.
Families often face difficult tradeoffs in making care arrangements and deciding how to allocate
family resources to meet the needs of their elderly members. Our proposed approach models the
decision-making process of the family when determining the combination of formal and
informal care while considering a wide array of factors such as care needs, the availability of
caregivers, and the cost of formal care. Simultaneously, the framework incorporates the supply
of formal paid care in the market, how it depends on labor market conditions and how it
responds to changes in demand for paid care. We combine data from various nationally
representative household surveys to simulate a dataset that is unique in scope to characterize
health, socioeconomic, and well-being outcomes, and family composition. Our ultimate goal is
to develop an analytic tool that informs the design, targeting, and implementation of effective
public policies that address care challenges. We use our comprehensive framework to simulate
demographic trends, including growth in aging population, and policy interventions that affect
the demand and supply of care to examine their effects.