The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has magnified what we’ve known all along – our institutions are not prepared to support family caregivers. We write to urge government, community and religious leaders to please remember the challenges facing family caregivers as this public health crisis continues to unfold. Unpaid family caregivers are the backbone of the health care system in the United States, providing as much as 90 percent of all home health care for no pay and at personal risk. Said differently, more than 44 million Americans (including more than 1.3 million caregiving youth) are providing unpaid care for loved ones across generations, including veterans, people with disabilities and battling chronic illness, and the elderly.
