COST - Consequences of caring: A 30-year follow-up of the health and wellbeing of parents with special needs children in a Nordic welfare state

Special needs children may require care that burdens parents and can result in health problems for the parents. The COST project analyses how caring for special needs children, for example with mental health issues, diabetes, or cancer, links with parental ill health and diagnoses of their own. We examine the 30 year outcomes of parents of children from the 1987 birth cohort. The project tracks the social security use and access by parents, and is able to study how this may have impacted on parents' health and wellbeing outcomes. Qualitative research allows investigating how parents experience the formal and informal support they received. Economic modelling is then used to theorise what social protection could better support these parents in the long term. The project's innovation is a holistic combination of methods, allowing for policy relevant results for future wellbeing and equality for parents of special needs children.