The Impact of Household Living Arrangements and Social Care on the Health and Wellbeing of Older People in a Rural South African Population with High HIV Prevalence

Makandwe Nyirenda, University of Kwazulu-Natal
Jane C. Falkingham, University of Southampton
Maria Evandrou, University of Southampton
Victoria Hosegood, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM)
Marie-Louise Newell, University of Kwazulu-Natal and African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC)

This paper uses population-based surveillance data combined with data from a nested study to examine how providing and receiving care impacts the health and wellbeing of older people in rural KwaZulu-Natal. Studies of older people in sub-Saharan Africa have focused on their roles as carers of HIV-infected adults or orphans. But older people are increasingly directly affected by HIV infection and in communities severally affected by HIV, older people thus face the double burden of being care-givers and needing care themselves, but little empirical evidence is there about how this role and need impacts the health and wellbeing of this group. The household as a social institution is an important source of support for older people, particularly as mobility and physical functioning decline with age. Both a strong social support system and a well functioning state social protection system play a role in the wellbeing of older people.