Meyer Kylie, Rath Laura, Gassoumis Zach, Kaiser Natalie, Wilber Kathleen
a Leonard Davis School of Gerontology , University of Southern California , Los Angeles , California , USA.
J Aging Soc Policy. 2018 Jun 8:1-19. doi: 10.1080/08959420.2018.1485395.
Family caregivers are the cornerstone of the long-term supports and services infrastructure in the United States, yet they often contend with many challenges related to this role. Public policy has been slow to change, leaving many caregivers vulnerable to health and economic consequences. Using models of policy making, we identify barriers to advancing policies that support family caregivers and overcome policy drift. We draw on discussions from the California Task Force on Family Caregiving as it prepares state policy recommendations. Identified strategies include identification of caregivers in health care and workplace settings to promote political consciousness raising, collecting and reporting on data that frame caregiving as a policy problem, borrowing policies and language from overlapping fields to emulate their policy successes, and presenting supportive caregiver policies as solutions to other policy problems. By presenting specific strategic approaches to advance caregiving policies, we provide tools to address the growing gap between caregiver needs and policy responses.
家庭照顾者是美国长期支持与服务体系的基石，但他们在履行这一角色时常常面临诸多挑战。公共政策的变革进展缓慢，致使许多照顾者容易受到健康和经济方面后果的影响。我们运用政策制定模型，找出推进支持家庭照顾者政策的障碍，并克服政策漂移现象。我们借鉴了加利福尼亚家庭照顾特别工作组在制定州政策建议过程中的讨论内容。确定的策略包括在医疗保健和工作场所识别照顾者，以提高政治意识；收集并报告将照顾问题界定为政策问题的数据；借鉴重叠领域的政策和措辞，效仿其政策成功经验；将支持照顾者的政策作为解决其他政策问题的方案提出。通过提出推进照顾政策的具体战略方法，我们提供了工具来弥合照顾者需求与政策回应之间日益扩大的差距。
