ABSTRACT
It is well established that there are concerns that grandparent care givers rarely take good care of their own health. A focus on the well-being of their grandchildren rather than self, high levels of physical and psychosocial health concerns for all grandparents, and low levels of health insurance access for younger primary caregiver grandparents combine to increase their health risks. This is a population that would benefit from evidence based health promotion and self-management strategies but time, respite, and transportation constraints further isolate grandparent caregivers from such resources. This chapter will illustrate that grandparent caregivers do benefit from evidence based programs, in this case the Chronic Disease Self Management Program, but acknowledges that self-reported benefits for grandparent completers of the program were not as robust when compared with those reported by an age matched sample of other older persons. Insights on why such programs should and could become more accessible to grand parent caregivers.
