How can policy support caregivers’ health? 
What support is being delivered? 
What do evaluations actually show? 
Colombia
Uruguay
Costa Rica
Chile
Brazil
Mexico
Ecuador
Dominican Republic
Argentina
Peru
In brief
Colombia’s national care policy sets an agenda for 2025–2034. Bogotá offers a more detailed local record of services, implementation and evaluation.
The two levels answer different questions. National commitments describe the wider policy direction; Bogotá’s findings concern a specific city and its service models.
Read the commitments alongside evidence of delivery. A policy’s adoption does not establish that every eligible caregiver receives support.
Caregiver health in policy
The national policy includes psychosocial support, community networks and respite-related measures for specified caregiver groups.
Scroll across the table to read all three columns.
| Support | Who it addresses | Evidence status |
|---|---|---|
| Psychosocial accompaniment | Signatories caring for older people or people with disabilities or high-cost illnesses, and family caregivers of signatories in those groups (ARN, 2025–2031) | Policy commitment |
| Community networks and psychosocial support | Young women caregivers affected by racialization and poverty in urban and rural peripheries | Policy commitment |
| Physical activity and respite measures | Caregivers within the policy’s sports and recreation actions | Policy commitment |
These examples do not establish a single universal caregiver-health benefit. Delivery still needs action-level verification.
Support while someone else provides care
Medellín describes its Círculos de Cuidado as free spaces offering wellbeing, rest, training, psychosocial and legal support to caregivers while children, older people or people with disabilities in their care receive attention. The city's directory also lists physiotherapy, physical-health support, leisure and economic-autonomy activities. The offer may vary by venue and schedule.
Policy and institutions
A national framework
CONPES 4143 was approved on 14 February. Its implementation period extends to 2034.
Shared responsibilities
Actions are assigned to implementing institutions, with six-monthly physical and financial reporting consolidated by DNP.
A wider territorial landscape
In its 2025–2026 accountability report, the Ministry of Equality and Equity identified 12 operating territorial care experiences across cities, departments and Bogotá. These include Círculos de Cuidado in Medellín, Club Care in Manizales, Barrios que Cuidan in Pereira, CuidArte in Cali and Territorio de Cuidado in Cumbal. The list records the ministry's assessment; it does not establish comparable coverage or health outcomes across places.
Implementation and financing
National implementation
DNP’s first-year account offers an administrative snapshot. These figures describe implementation reporting, not changes in caregivers’ health.
DNP report for the 2025-II cutoff, officially closed in June 2026. The reporting base for the 30 actions is unclear; these figures should not be read as a completion rate.
Medellín: participation and access
On 5 November 2026, Medellín reported 12 care circles and one community laundry. The city also reported that more than 4,500 women had participated in respite activities, without specifying a full reference period in that account. Its directory says caregivers can approach their nearest circle to enroll or use services, and links each venue to its programme.
Bogotá: local service reach
The city directory inspected on 9 November 2026 lists 27 Care Blocks offering free services. The June report records 506,161 people and 3,969,762 service encounters in Care Blocks, cumulatively from 1 November 2020 to 30 June 2026.
These are city service-use records, not national coverage or counts of improved health. Encounters can repeat, and service reclassification limits trends.
DNP also reports 57 actions with double approval and 33.4% progress against annual targets. Reported financial execution for this cutoff was COP 118,896.41 million. The policy’s indicative COP 25,655,382 million cost covers 2025–2034. These amounts have different purposes and periods; their ratio is not a valid policy-completion measure.
Findings and limits
This profile presents no evaluation of the national policy’s effects. The study below concerns Bogotá only.
Local evaluation / Bogotá Care Blocks / Reported February 2024
Wellbeing findings need careful interpretation
An adjusted comparison of 702 Care Block users and 702 non-users estimated a 7-percentage-point higher share reporting happiness among users. Differences in self-rated health and emotional symptoms were not statistically significant.
The study offers evidence about a particular city service model. It compares groups and may retain unmeasured differences; it does not demonstrate national policy effects.
A caregiver intervention studied in Cali
Arango-Lasprilla and colleagues randomized 69 family caregivers of people with dementia recruited through an Alzheimer's foundation in Cali to an eight-week cognitive-behavioral group or an educational comparison group. After adjustment for baseline differences, the intervention group reported lower depression and burden and greater satisfaction with life at the end of the programme and at three months; the study found no significant difference in perceived stress. Outcomes were self-reported, follow-up was short, and participants came from one foundation. The study did not evaluate Cali's public CuidArte system.
The wider Bogotá study included 2674 people across several service models and used propensity-score matching and entropy balancing. Its results table marks the happiness difference at the 95% significance level. The table and narrative disagree on some details; the figures here follow the table and its legend. These are comparisons between groups, not changes in the same people over time.
City case / Colombia
Go deeper: Bogotá
A full collection connecting policy history, institutions, neighbourhood services and evidence.
Includes the Los Mártires case and resources developed in the Care for Health context.
Where Medellín lists its care circles
The municipal directory listed the following venues when accessed on 13 November 2026. Contact the city or consult the linked programme before visiting, as schedules and services can change.
| Area | Venue |
|---|---|
| 1. Popular | Casa de la Cultura |
| 2. Santa Cruz | Casa de Justicia Villa del Socorro |
| 3. Manrique | UVA La Armonía |
| 4. Aranjuez | Centro Integral de Servicios Ambulatorios para la Mujer y la Familia |
| 5. Castilla | UVA Sin Fronteras |
| 6. Doce de Octubre | Centro de Desarrollo Social |
| 7. Robledo | Parque Biblioteca Tomás Carrasquilla, La Quintana |
| 8. Villa Hermosa | UVA La Imaginación |
| 9. Buenos Aires | Centro de Emprendimiento y Empleo |
| 10. La Candelaria | Centro Integral para la Familia |
| 13. San Javier | Parque Biblioteca San Javier |
| 60. San Cristóbal | Parque Biblioteca Fernando Botero |
The directory lists 12 venues, matching the city's 5 November 2026 release, although an older answer on the same directory page still says nine.
Sources
National implementation
Action-level evidence is still needed to establish delivery of the specific health-support commitments.
Comparable service reporting
Bogotá’s monthly reports and dashboard need careful reconciliation of periods, people and encounters.
Beyond Bogotá
Other territorial initiatives require their own source review; this collection does not represent all Colombian local care policies.
Time use: the denominator matters
DANE's time-use survey for September 2024 to August 2025 provides estimates for 24 departments and Bogotá. In Antioquia, 91.4% of women and 64.3% of men aged ten or older participated in unpaid work and related activities. Among those who participated, average daily time was 6 hours 10 minutes for women and 2 hours 43 minutes for men. The time measure includes unpaid domestic work as well as care, and its denominator differs from the participation rate.
Unpaid work across Colombia’s departments
Daily hours among people aged 10 or older who performed unpaid work and related activities, September 2024–August 2025. Includes domestic work and care. The table follows DANE’s territorial order.
Search the table
| Department or district | Women, h:mm (95% interval) | Men, h:mm (95% interval) |
|---|---|---|
| Antioquia | 6:10 (5:54–6:26) | 2:43 (2:30–2:56) |
| Atlántico | 6:33 (6:19–6:47) | 2:42 (2:32–2:52) |
| Bogotá, D.C. | 6:58 (6:43–7:13) | 3:41 (3:29–3:53) |
| Bolívar | 7:02 (6:42–7:22) | 2:13 (1:59–2:27) |
| Boyacá | 6:48 (6:19–7:17) | 2:26 (2:04–2:48) |
| Caldas | 7:04 (6:33–7:36) | 2:42 (2:24–2:59) |
| Caquetá | 9:14 (8:42–9:46) | 2:47 (2:29–3:05) |
| Cauca | 7:40 (7:20–8:00) | 2:49 (2:38–3:00) |
| Cesar | 6:46 (6:28–7:04) | 2:39 (2:25–2:52) |
| Córdoba | 8:31 (8:08–8:55) | 2:54 (2:34–3:15) |
| Cundinamarca | 9:14 (7:37–10:51) | 3:49 (3:05–4:34) |
| Chocó | 5:40 (5:18–6:02) | 3:17 (2:59–3:35) |
| Huila | 9:03 (8:23–9:44) | 2:45 (2:24–3:06) |
| La Guajira | 7:12 (6:51–7:34) | 2:33 (2:17–2:49) |
| Magdalena | 12:41 (11:53–13:29) | 4:41 (4:06–5:16) |
| Meta | 8:52 (8:18–9:27) | 3:15 (2:53–3:37) |
| Nariño | 7:30 (7:07–7:52) | 3:03 (2:47–3:18) |
| Norte de Santander | 7:29 (7:06–7:52) | 2:59 (2:49–3:10) |
| Quindío | 5:11 (4:45–5:38) | 1:40 (1:24–1:56) |
| Risaralda | 9:08 (8:34–9:41) | 4:09 (3:35–4:43) |
| Santander | 8:20 (7:52–8:48) | 2:55 (2:39–3:12) |
| Sucre | 7:51 (7:09–8:33) | 2:38 (2:15–3:02) |
| Tolima | 6:52 (6:33–7:10) | 3:01 (2:45–3:16) |
| Valle del Cauca | 8:21 (7:41–9:00) | 4:35 (3:23–5:47) |
| San Andrés | 6:04 (5:41–6:28) | 2:28 (2:14–2:41) |
No places match this search.
Intervals are DANE’s published 95% confidence intervals. These are averages among participants, not all residents or only caregivers. The CSV also preserves participation rates, their intervals and coefficients of variation. The workbook’s update note says 14 August 2026; its survey reference period is September 2024–August 2025.
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