Social disparities in associations between informal caregiving intensity and mental health: Evidence from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging.

While prior research has highlighted social disparities in health associated with informal caregiving, the findings are inconsistent, often based on non-representative samples, and overlook variations in caregiving situations (e.g., caregiving intensity). This study integrates the Stress Process Model and the intersectionality perspective to examine how informal caregiving intensity interacts with various social determinants of health (SDOHs), guided by the PROGRESS-Plus framework, which includes factors such as socioeconomic status, gender, and social support, in shaping mental health, as measured by life satisfaction and depressive symptoms. We used three waves of nationally representative data from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging for the analysis. We applied linear mixed models to assess the association between informal caregiving and mental health, accounting for repeated measures within individuals and unobserved, time-invariant characteristics. Interaction effects were examined to explore whether SDOHs condition the association between informal caregiving intensity and mental health. Results show that intensive caregiving is associated with poorer mental health, whereas moderate-intensity caregiving is not significantly detrimental, and low-intensity caregiving is associated with higher life satisfaction. Social support mitigates the negative effects of caregiving on life satisfaction among moderate-intensity and intensive caregivers and on depressive symptoms among intensive caregivers. Other PROGRESS-Plus dimensions show limited evidence of moderating this association.