Rights-based approach to care and support for older persons

This policy brief presents the authors’ conceptual framework for a rights-based approach to long-term care and support. The framework forms the theoretical basis for the construction of a comparative index of rights-based policies addressing care and support, developed as part of the same study. The impetus for development of the framework is the increasing emphasis across Europe in both advocacy and policy circles on ensuring the social and economic rights of all individuals as they age, including the right to care. A human rights-based approach to care has the potential to empower older people to claim their rights and to hold states accountable in their role as duty bearers. The framework lays out ten main human rights domains relevant to persons with care and supports needs, and provides an in-depth description of the substantive rights that each of these ten main domains should include.