Recipients of PSC Small Grant Awards

This new line of research for me on family caregivers for older adults with ADRD is an important extension of my previous work. As a family demographer and sociologist, I am interested in how families provide for one another in various ways. For instance, my dissertation used the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to investigate how childhood family structure and partnership status in adulthood are associated with helping aging parents by either giving them financial help or helping with their care needs by spending time with them. The population of older adults with Alzheimer’s and dementia is expected to grow over time, so the size of the family caregiver population providing for them may also grow. My research is inspired by my desire to improve the well-being of older adults and their family caregivers by understanding who comprises the population and their behavior.