Consumer Directed Care (CDC) is being embraced within Australia and internationally as a means to promote autonomy and choices in the delivery of health and community aged care services. While evaluation of CDC in Australia is growing, little is known about the spatial implications of such policy. With differences in the utilization of home care services across locations, the introduction of a national CDC program may affect different regions to different extents. This paper explores the regional effect of the CDC introduction on older Australians’ mental health using the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey. We find that the CDC model has a larger effect on older adults’ mental health in the areas with higher utilization of Home Care Packages. Using our own uniquely compiled dataset from My Aged care website, we find suggestive evidence of a regional pattern in both services and non-services fees across Queensland.
Professor Brenda Gannon joined the Centre for Business and Economics of Health, at The University of Queensland in 2016, as Mater Research Institute Chair in Health Economics.
Previously she was an associate professor at The University of Manchester and University of Leeds from 2011-2016. Prior to that she was a senior research officer and deputy director at the Irish Centre for Social Geronotology/Department of Economics at the National University of Ireland, Galway and researcher at the Economic and Social Research Institute, Dublin, Ireland, under the Health Research Ireland, Health Economics and Inequalities programme of research.
Brenda is currently an Expert Evaluator for the EU Commission funding applications and recently a member of the NIHR RfPB (Research for Patient Benefit) Advisory Committee.
Kieu My (Michelle) Tran is a current PhD Candidate at Queensland University: Ageing economics, health outcomes and workforce planning.
To Register: This is a free event and will be taking place online via Zoom. To register for this talk please use this link: oxford.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/herc-talk-gannon-12th-nov-2020
