Assessing Health Risk Areas and Activity-Travel Behaviour of Carer-Employees

Abstract

Carer-employees are defined as individuals who provide unpaid care to a disabled / ill dependent person(s) while working full-time in the paid labour force. In Canada, there are 6.1 million carer-employees, many of which are experiencing work-life balance struggles, which may result in ill-health. To minimize negative impacts, there is interest in developing caregiver-friendly workplace policies (CFWPs) as an intervention strategy to improve CEs’ work-life balance. However, the effectiveness of CFWPs are still in their infancy and often only focus on the work dimension. One of the most critical dimensions that have not yet been assessed is the activity-travel behaviour of carer-employees, which is largely impacted by the assisted-transport demands of their care-recipient. To contribute to filling in this gap, this dissertation addresses the following objectives: 1) develop an activity-travel behaviour profile of carer-employees using sociodemographic and caregiving characteristics; 2) identify spatial locations with potentially high assisted-transport demand while suggesting new areas to improve mobility independence of care-recipients, and; 3) create and apply a mixed-methods framework that classifies the actual activity-travel behaviour of carer-employees. The purposes of all three objectives are to: contribute to closing the literature gap; visually inform decision-makers and health planners, and; efficiently develop caregiver-friendly transport policies (CFTPs). Highlighted findings show that carer-employees conducting assisted-transport have lower income and are more likely to be tired and overwhelmed than those not performing the transport task (Objective 1). In Hamilton metropolitan area, 38% of the older adult population are not within immediate reach to a vital service, and another 15% are located in potentially high assisted-transport demand areas. Suggested areas for service implementation would improve access for older adults by 18% (Objective 2). Lastly, the framework has classified and ranked three types of activity-travel behaviours (Objective 3). All of these findings have led to the discussion of a multi-pronged implementation strategy for uptake of CFTPs.