BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 1526
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CONCURRENCE IN SENATE AMENDMENTS
AB
1526 (Committee on Aging and Long-Term Care)
As Amended September 4, 2015
Majority vote
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|ASSEMBLY: |79-0 |(June 1, 2015) |SENATE: |40-0 |(September 9, |
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Original Committee Reference: AGING & L.T.C.
SUMMARY: Directs the Department of Public Health (DPH), by
January 1, 2017, to include the federal Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention's (CDC) Caregiver Module in the annual
Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) survey.
The Senate amendments limit inclusion of the Caregiver Module in
the CDC's BRFSS to once before 2017, and allows the Caregiver
Module to be administered on one track to limit potential costs.
Background: The Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System
(BRFSS) is a cross-sectional telephone survey that state health
departments conduct with a standardized questionnaire, and
technical and methodological assistance from CDC. BRFSS is used
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to collect prevalence data among United States residents
regarding behaviors that create health risks, as well as
preventive practices that reduce health risks. Data is
forwarded to CDC, aggregated for each state, returned with
standard tabulations, and published at year's end. In 2011,
more than 500,000 interviews were conducted nationwide. By
collecting behavioral health risk data at the state and local
level, BRFSS has become a powerful tool for targeting and
building health promotion activities. As a result, BRFSS users
have increasingly demanded more data and asked for more
questions on the survey.
BRFSS Caregiver Module: Beginning in 2009, a special set of 10
questions have been available to examine various aspects of
caregiving, referred to as the "Caregiver Module." The
questions allow states to determine who is a caregiver; the
relationship between the caregiver and the care recipient; the
average hours of caregiving per week; the most difficult problem
facing the caregiver; the age and gender of the care recipient;
the types of assistance needed by the care recipient; the major
health problem, long-term illness, or disability of the care
recipient; the duration of caregiving; and whether the person
has had more difficulty with thinking or remembering in the past
year. The responses from the caregiver module are then paired
with information from the main BRFSS questionnaire, which allow
for additional information about the health and well-being of
caregivers.
Caregiving: California is home to the largest number of seniors
in the nation and their numbers are expanding at a pace
unprecedented in history. Caregivers support the needs of
dependent individuals in a variety of ways, performing a range
of tasks, including companionship, light house-keeping, meal
preparation, and personal care to name just a few. More complex
and sensitive tasks include money management, medication
management, communicating with health professionals, and
coordinating care. The Family Caregiver Alliance finds that
many family members and friends do not consider such assistance
and care "caregiving" - they are just doing what comes naturally
to them: taking care of someone they love. But that care may be
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required for months or years, and may take an emotional,
physical and financial toll on caregiving families.
The value of the services family caregivers provide for "free,"
when caring, was estimated to be $450 billion in 2009. The
estimated value of unpaid care in California is $47 billion,
accounting for over 3.8 billion hours of care. On the personal
side, long-term caregiving has significant financial
consequences for caregivers, particularly for women. Informal
caregivers personally lose about $659,139 over a lifetime:
$25,494 in Social Security benefits; $67,202 in pension
benefits; and $566,443 in forgone wages. Caregivers face the
loss of income of the care recipient, loss of their own income
if they reduce their work hours or leave their jobs, loss of
employer-based medical benefits, shrinking of savings to pay
caregiving costs, and a threat to their retirement income due to
fewer contributions to pensions and other retirement vehicles.
FISCAL EFFECT: According to the Senate Appropriations
Committee, annual costs of $150,000 per year to expand the
existing survey to include the optional caregiving module
(General Fund). The DPH indicates that it costs $7,500 per
additional question to expand the existing survey, including the
costs to conduct phone interviews and compile responses.
Amendments taken in the Senate limit the survey to once (instead
of once each year, for five years) before 2017, and limit the
survey to a single track (instead of the typical dual track
survey).
Analysis Prepared by:
Robert MacLaughlin / AGING & L.T.C. / (916)
319-3990
FN: 0002329
AB 1526
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