Household responses to public home care programs.

A choice-theoretic model of household decision-making with respect to care-giving time allocations and the use of publicly and privately financed home care services are proposed. Predictions concerning the effect of increased availability of publicly financed home care services on home care utilization, informal care giving, and health status are derived. These predictions are assessed through use of Canadian inter-provincial survey data on home care use and care giving that are matched with data on home care funding for the period 1992-1998. Increased availability of publicly financed home care is associated with an increase in its utilization, a decline in informal care giving, and an improvement in self-reported health status.