Social networks, ethnicity and public home-care utilisation

This article examines the relationships between support networks, ethnicity and the utilisation of formal care services, taking into account background characteristics and functional health status among 3,403 older people in Israel. Data were drawn from a national survey in 1997 of people aged 60 or more years. The outcome variable was the use of publicly-financed personal care or homemaking services. About 15 per cent of the study population made use of such home care. Six informal support network constellations were identified by applying cluster analysis to key criterion variables that reflect the inter-personal milieu. The resultant network types were: community-clan, family-focused, diverse, friend-focused, neighbour-focused, and restricted networks. Binary logistic regression revealed that the use of formal home-care services was significantly associated with a respondent's age, gender, functional level and informal support network type (Nagelkerke R² = 0.39). No association was found between home-care utilisation and a respondent's ethnicity (Arab, Jew, and new Russian immigrant), income or education. The results show that publicly-financed formal care services were utilised more frequently by older-old persons, women, functionally impaired individuals and people embedded in the neighbour-focused and restricted networks (and to a lesser degree, in the diverse and friend-focused networks). Neighbour-focused and restricted network types were characterised by fewer informal support resources at their disposal than the other types. Thus, formal home care was sought more often in cases in which the informal sources of support had less capacity to provide ongoing informal care.