Transportation, Homemaker, and Home-Delivered Meals services provide not only important direct assistance for older persons, but they also offer tangible indirect support for family caregivers. For example, the in-home and transportation services may allow family members who are caring for elderly relatives during evenings and weekends to work or conduct other essential activities during week days.

After completing the Transportation, Homemaker, and Home-Delivered Meals surveys, interviewers asked the service recipients about the presence of a family caregiver and, when this was the case, received permission and contact information for a separate caregiver interview. The results from these Client Caregivers, as the survey calls them, show the indirect impact of OAA services. These caregivers are in addition to participants in the National Family Caregiver Support Program (NFCSP).