The Relationship between informal caregiving, wellbeing and health behaviour over the lifecourse.

In the UK, around 7 million people are estimated to be Informal caregivers which accounts for around £119 billion in economic contributions. Some investigations have suggested an association between caregiving and a higher disease burden. However, evidence is often based on small, cross-sectional studies that neglected caregiving in the earlier adult life or failed to consider the rewarding aspects of caregiving.

To address these knowledge gaps, the proposed research aims to investigate the relationship between informal caregiving, well-being and health behaviours of caregivers over the lifecourse. Objectives include:
1. Estimating the effect of informal caregiving on the trajectories of well-being and health behaviours in young carers (10-15 years old), young adult carers (16-29 yo), adult carers (30-50 yo) and older adult carers (50+).
2. Identifying other protective and harmful characteristics of the caregiving experience on well-being and health behaviour that might explain health differences.
3. Assessing the period effect of the 2020/21 COVID-19 pandemic on the trajectories of wellbeing and health behaviour of caregivers compared to non-caregivers across life stage.
4. Applying the effort-reward-imbalance model to the caregiving experience and testing whether effort-reward-imbalance modifies the relationship between caregiving, well-being and outcomes.
5. Examining causal inference between caregiving and outcome measures by estimating the effect of transitions into and out of caregiving on trajectories in wellbeing and health behaviours.
To achieve this, a secondary data analysis will be performed using existing data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study and the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing as well as their corresponding COVID-19 substudies. These data sets contain information on caregiving intensity, relationship between caregiver and recipient and other characteristics. Data will be analysed using advanced quantitative techniques, such as Growth curve models, piece-wise growth-curve model

The lifecourse approach links directly to the desires pathway and will result in a substantial knowledge gain because investigating the effect of the caregiving experience on health behaviour is original. Likewise, the application of the effort-reward-imbalance on caregiving is novel and the focus on the rewarding aspects of caregiving will enable to investigate caregiving from a different perspective.
Relevance for policy and research.