Towards a rights-based approach in long-term care

Building an index of rights-based policies for older people in Europe

PROJECT CO-ORDINATORS

Magdi Birtha
Ricardo Rodrigues
Katharine Schulmann

PROJECT TEAM AT THE EUROPEAN CENTRE

Stefania Ilinca, Veronica Sandu, Eszter Zólyomi

BACKGROUND

People in older age groups occupy a growing share of the population in many European countries. Ensuring that all older people have the opportunity to continue to actively participate in society and that those with care needs have access to affordable, quality long-term care is therefore an important issue facing governments. In recent years, international, regional and national legal instruments have increasingly promoted a rights-based approach to enshrining the rights of older people in law—including the right to enjoy good health—and making sure that these rights are incorporated in policy and practice.

AIMS

To develop a conceptual framework for a rights-based approach to long-term care that builds directly on the literature on rights for people with disabilities
To create an index that comprehensively captures a rights-based approach to long-term care by identifying and populating relevant policy domains and indicators in such a way as to make cross-country comparison and monitoring over time possible
To pilot the index by analysing and comparing the results for a select group of European countries

METHODS

Literature review
Expert Workshop
Expert interviews
Delphi survey

ACTIVITIES/MILESTONES

Review of the state of the art on a human rights approach to care and support for older people
Expert workshop to validate review findings
Framework for a rights-based approach
Conceptualisation of the index and guidelines for indicators
Calculated index and analysis for 12 countries
Time-varying indices and analysis
Final report

The European Centre for Social Welfare Policy and Research supports the Sustainable Development Goals