Changes in Residential Proximity between Older Adults and Their Children in Response to Cardiovascular Events

Cardiovascular disease is a leading cause of severe disability, which in turn creates a significant need for personal care among older adults. Children are the most important source of informal care among older adults. To facilitate care, family members may need to relocate following an adverse cardiovascular event of older adults. To measure proximity changes in response to older adults’ cardiovascular event, we explore the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), a longitudinal survey of a nationally representative sample of US older adults. We identify new cardiovascular events of stroke, myocardial infarction and congestive heart failure among older adults who did not have a history of cardiovascular disease. And, we measured changes in residential proximity between older adults and their children by utilizing HRS geographic information. Results from clustered multivariate logistic regression and propensity score matching method suggest that having cardiovascular event increases the two-year predicted probability of children and adult parents moving closer to each other from 9.2% to 12.5%. Families are especially likely to migrate in response to a cardiovascular event if the older person experiencing the event is a woman, has a daughter, or has at least one child who does not work.