The Determinants of the Propensity to Receive Publicly Funded Home Care Services for the Elderly in Canada

Increases in Home Care (HC) services for the elderly have been a policy priority in recent decades. HC services include Home Health Care (HHC) and Homemaking/Personal Support (HM). We explored the interrelationship between receipt of publicly funded HM and HHC, and the determinants of the receipt of each type of services. A household home care decision model was extended, to develop an understanding of the demand for HHC and HM services separately and to include different household arrangements. Individual panel data for those aged 65 and over were derived from 9 biannual waves of the Canadian National Population Health Survey (1994-95 to 2010-11). A Panel Two-Stage Residual Inclusion method was used to estimate the likelihood of the receipt of HC services. Receipt of publicly funded HM is complementary with receipt of publicly funded HHC services after adjusting for functional and health status. Dependence on help with activities of daily living, health status, household arrangement, and income are determinants of the propensity to receive publicly funded HHC and HM services.