Comparison of caregivers of older adults in state and national surveys to those seeking help in California’s Caregiver Resource Centers

Background and Objectives: Large population-based surveys are often used in caregiver research and to support policy, while caregivers seeking help and resources—key targets of the 2022 National Strategy to Support Family Caregivers—have not been fully described. We describe and compare caregiver attributes in a California-wide population seeking support to those in state and national surveys. Research Design and Methods: This descriptive comparative study harmonized and compared variables across four data sources (2020–2022): Caregiving in the US (CGUS; n=1,089); National Study of Caregiving (NSOC; n=1,885); California Health Interview Survey (CHIS; n=2,159); and CareNav, a web-based application supporting services in California-based Caregiver Resource Centers (CRC; n=5,967). Results: More CRC caregivers were female, older, married or partnered, and caring for someone with Alzheimer’s disease or dementia. They were more likely to provide care for ≥40hr/week (74% vs 10% CHIS; 22% CGUS; 16% NSOC); support activities of daily living (94% vs 68% CGUS), perform medical/nursing tasks (83% vs 59% CGUS; 10% NSOC); and provide high-intensity care (90% vs 40% CGUS). More CRC caregivers reported fair/poor health (34% vs 18% CHIS; 18% CGUS; 21% NSOC), loneliness (21% vs 2% CHIS), and worse health due to caregiving (31% vs 15% CHIS; 21% NSOC). Discussion and Implications: Caregivers seeking help and resources provide more full-time, high intensity care with more impact on well-being compared to caregivers in large probabilistic samples. Reliance solely on population-based surveys to set targets to support caregivers, monitor progress, or allocate resources may miss the caregivers that need help the most.