THE EFFECTS OF CARING ON HEALTH - A COMMUNITY-BASED LONGITUDINAL-STUDY

This paper begins with a critical review of studies which have examine d the effects of caring on health. Most are shown to suffer from defec ts in sampling and design, so that the evidence for detrimental effect s is suggestive rather than conclusive. The substantive part of the pa per then utilizes data on a cohort of 55-year-olds to compare the heal th of carers with the health of non-carers and to examine changes in c aring and health over a 3-year period. The comparison yields no system atic evidence of the deleterious effects of caring on health; indeed, if there is a tendency in the accumulated data, it is in the opposite direction i.e. that carers report better health and functioning than n on-carers. It is suggested that part of the explanation relates to sel ection and self-selection and the longitudinal data reveals high volat ility in caring status, even over a short time period. The paper goes on to examine sub-groups of carers considered to be at greater risk. T here is no evidence that their health is compromised but the authors a cknowledge weaknesses in the data and argue for a specially designed s tudy. The paper concludes with a discussion of the findings and their implications for research, policy and practice.