Senior citizens who do not have children to help care for them are less likely to have to go into a nursing home if they live in a state that spends more on home- and community- based services, researchers have found. Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago report the finding in the May 11 issue of the Journals of Gerontology: Social Sciences.
Some states spend as little as $35 per person each year on home and community-based services for seniors, while other states spend more than $1,300 per person annually, according to previous research. Regardless of how much was spent on home- and community-based services, the researchers found that doubling states’ spending on services would reduce the risk of nursing home admission among childless seniors by 35 percent.