Survey explores relationship between caregiving, economic development, and quality of life
A year ago Shoshanah Inwood, associate professor of Community, Food, and Economic Development in the CFAES School of Environment and Natural Resources (SENR) at The Ohio State University and Fellow of the North Central Regional Center for Rural Development (NCRCRD) and SENR alum Florence Becot, associate professor at Penn State University received support to develop and implement the 2023 NCRCRD Caregiving Survey to better understand who provides child, adult, and elderly care and how caregiving affects economic development and quality of life in the North Central Region.
Who provides caregiving?
On February 27 Inwood and Becot will introduce the open access data set NCR-Stat: Caregiving Across the Life Course Survey and share a glimpse of caregiving via a webinar hosted by NCRCRD. The 2023 survey is part of a larger effort to facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration across states, among researchers and Extension. The survey was collaboratively developed by researchers from the NCRCRD, The Ohio State University, the National Farm Medicine Center, Penn State, AARP, University of Minnesota, Purdue University, University of Rhode Island, and South Dakota State University.
This is the first survey designed to understand caregiving across the life course (children, adults, and elderly) and includes data on why people are being cared for; demographics of caregivers; types of caregiving; how caregiving impacts an individual’s social and economic wellbeing, and mental and physical health; and asks caregivers what types of programs and policies could help them. — Dr. Shoshanah Inwood, associate professor of Community, Food, and Economic Development at The Ohio State University.
"This data set includes responses from over 4,000 caregivers from all 12 states in the North Central Region and will allow academic and non-profit researchers to explore caregiving at the regional level, state level, and compare rural and urban populations." said Inwood. "We intentionally designed this survey to provide researchers, practitioners and policy makers with a better understanding of caregiving within their states, and to provide seed data that can be leveraged for more in-depth studies."
In the one-hour webinar the presenters will discuss:
- Who is being cared for and how caring may differ across the lifespan
- Who is doing the caregiving and what caregiving looks like
- How caregiving impacts individuals social and economic well-being, and their mental and physical health
- What helps caregivers and what resources are needed
"An exciting outcome of our work is that the survey is being replicated in the Northeast and the South by the CRD’s in those regions.” said Inwood. “Collectively these data sets can be used to inform more holistic caregiving programs and policies at the state, regional, and national level."
Learn more about the NCR-STAT: Caregiving Survey and how to use the data HERE.
Register for the February 27 NCRCRD Webinar