Monthly on the 3rd Thursday
8am US Pacific Time, 11am US Eastern Time, 5pm Central European Time
The Gateway to Global Aging, in partnership with the Center to Accelerate Population Research in Alzheimer’s (capra.med.umich.edu), is organizing a monthly virtual seminar series on long-term care, services, and policy. The seminar series is led by Julien Bergeot from Université Paris Dauphine - PSL and Giacomo Pasini from Ca' Foscari University of Venice. The goal of the seminar series is to promote international interactions among scholars in this growing field of research. Presentations will typically be on in-progress work and discussions are strongly encouraged.
Participants must register to receive upcoming seminar announcements and virtual meeting room links. To register please submit a form with your email here. Emails will be kept limited to seminar announcements and you can unsubscribe from this list at any time.
Upcoming Presentations:
November 20, 2025
Stipica Mudrazija, University of Washington
"Life after care cessation: variations in labor market and earnings trajectories between former family caregivers and non-caregivers of older adults following the death of a loved one"
December 11, 2025 (Special date: 2nd Thursday, instead of the usual 3rd)
Wei Yang, King's College London
"Can long-term care insurance reduce catastrophic health and long-term care expenditures among older adults? A quasi-experimental study in China"
Older adults with cognitive and/or physical limitations often incur substantial health and long-term care (LTC) costs that affect their living standards. Yet, existing measures of catastrophic health expenditure (CHE) primarily capture healthcare costs, overlooking the significant burden of LTC expenses. This study is among the first to propose the concept of catastrophic health and long-term care expenditures (CHLTCE) to more comprehensively reflect the financial strain associated with cognitive and functional limitations. Using data from the 2011, 2013, 2015, and 2018 waves of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, we applied a staggered difference-in-differences approach to evaluate the impact of long-term care insurance (LTCI) on mitigating CHLTCE. Our findings show that incorporating LTC costs substantially increases both total expenditures and the risk of CHLTCE compared with analyses limited to healthcare costs. Moreover, LTCI significantly reduces CHLTCE risks among older adults with cognitive and/or physical limitations, with stronger effects observed among those with severe cognitive impairments and those with physical limitations accompanied by chronic diseases. However, LTCI’s protective effect for individuals with complex care needs was evident only at higher catastrophic thresholds. These results provide empirical evidence supporting the inclusion of LTC costs in catastrophic expenditure assessments and highlight the need for policymakers to expand LTCI eligibility and strengthen financial protection for individuals with complex care needs.
January 15, 2026
Jinbao Zhang, University of Kent
"The Effect of Self-Directed Care on Unmet Needs of Older Adults: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from China"
Self-directed care is a service model that grants recipients choice and control over home- and community-based services. China has adopted this model, funded by its long-term care insurance (LTCI), yet its effects remain underexplored. This study examines the impact of self-directed care on unmet needs among older Chinese and explores the underlying mechanisms. Using data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS, 2013, 2015, 2018, and 2020), this study employed doubly robust difference-in-difference estimators to compare individuals in self-directed and agency-directed care programs with those in non-LTCI cities, with a total of 27,297 observations from 7,627 respondents. Compared to individuals in non-LTCI cities, those under self-directed care reported 0.106 fewer unmet needs and were 4.4 percentage points more likely to be satisfied with life. No significant effects were observed on family caregiving intensity and depressive symptoms. In contrast, agency-directed care had no significant effects on unmet needs, life satisfaction, depressive symptoms, or family caregiving intensity. The findings demonstrate that self-directed care reduces unmet needs by enhancing the service quality provided by family caregivers rather than altering their care intensity. These insights offer practical implications for promoting self-direction and integrating family caregivers into care systems.
February 19, 2026
Sara Machado, Brown University
Thank you to those who have already presented:
January 19, 2023
Julien Bergeot of the Department of Economics, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (joint work with Louis Arnault)
"Informal Care & Mental Health: A Story of Unobserved Heterogeneity"
February 16, 2023
Marlies Bär of the Erasmus School of Health Policy & Management, Erasmus University Rotterdam (joint work with Pieter Bakx, Nigel Rice, Rita Santos, Luigi Siciliani, and Bram Wouterse)
"Spillovers of Delayed Nursing Home Admissions to the Hospital Sector"
March 16, 2023
Edward Norton, University of Michigan
"Did Avoiding Post-Acute SNF Care During COVID Save Lives?"
April 20, 2023
Ingo Kolodziej of RWI Essen (joint work with Norma B. Coe of the University of Pennsylvania and Courtney H. Van Houtven of Duke University)
"Intensive Informal Care and Impairments in Work Productivity and Activity"
May 18, 2023
Joan Costa-i-Font, London School of Economics
"Are Long term care subsidies and supports productive? Effects on health and wellbeing"
September 21, 2023
Elsa Perdrix, Paris Dauphine University
"Horizontal Inequity in Long-term Care Use in France"
October 19, 2023
Bertrand Achou, University of Groningen
"At Home versus in a Nursing Home: Long-term Care Settings and Marginal Utility"
November 16, 2023
R. Tamara Konetzka, University of Chicago
"The Role of Medicaid Home- and Community-Based Services in Use of Medicare Post-Acute Care"
Dec 14, 2023
Anne Penneau, Institute for Research and Information in Health Economics "The Impact of Nursing Homes on Quality of Drug Prescription in France"
February 15, 2024
Helena M. Hernandez-Pizarro, Pompeu Fabra University
"Unravelling Hidden Inequities in a Universal Public Long-Term Care System"
March 21, 2024
Sung Ah Bahk, American University (joint work with Selin Secil Akin, Lidia Brun, Ignacio Gonzalez, and Aina Puig)
"Universal Long-term Care Reform and the Labor Supply of Caregivers: Evidence from Korea"
April 18, 2024
Meghan Skira, University of Georgia
"Genetic Risk for Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias: Cognition, Economic Behavior, and Clinically Actionable Information"
May 16, 2024
Wenhan Zhang, Duke University
"Trends in Quality of Life Indicators for Older Adults with Cognitive Impairment Across Living and Care Arrangements from 2008 to 2020: A Population-Based Descriptive Study"
September 19, 2024
Bram Wouterse, Erasmus School of Health Policy & Management (joint work with Prithviraj Basu Mallik and Pieter Bakx)
"Preventing Nursing Home Use: Is State-Sponsored Spending for Social Care a Winning Formula?"
October 10, 2024
Chuxuan Sun, University of Pennsylvania
"The costs of AD/ADRD by dementia subtype: Evidence from ACT"
November 21, 2024
Manuel V. Montesinos, ROCKWOOL Foundation Berlin
"Elderly Care across Europe: The Role of Formal and Informal Care in Family Decision-Making"
December 12, 2024
Elena Bassoli, ETH Zürich (joint work with Mathieu Lefebvre and Jérôme Schoenmaekers)
"Comparing Health Outcomes in Different Care Settings: Nursing Homes vs. Home Care"
January 16, 2025
Gopi Shah Goda, Brookings Institution
"Subsidizing Medical Spending through the Tax Code: Take-Up, Targeting and the Cost of Claiming"
February 20, 2025
David Li, University of Southern California (joint work with Marco Angrisani and Jinkook Lee)
"The Mental Health Implications of Informal Care Receipt Stability"
March 20, 2025
Eric Bonsang, Université Paris-Dauphine
"The “Demise of the Caregiving Daughter”? Gender Employment Gaps and the use of formal and informal care in Europe"
April 17, 2025
Megan Shepherd-Banigan, Duke University
"VA CARES: A partnered evaluation of the US Department of Veterans Affairs Caregiver Support Program"
May 15, 2025
Jun Li , Syracuse University (joint work with Reagan A. Baughman)
"Wage Pass-Through Policies, Direct Care Worker Compensation, and Labor Supply in the Home Health Care Sector"
September 18, 2025
Ritesh Maharaj (joint work with Sara Machado and Irene Papanicolas), Brown University
"The Impact of Long-Term Care Funding on Access to Life Sustaining Critical Care in the English NHS."
October 16, 2025
David Knapp, University of Southern California (joint work with Maya Fransz-Myers, Sarah Gao, and the Gateway LTC Policy Team)
"Differences in Access to Publicly Provided Long-term Care in the United States"