• by Les Luchter , Yesterday

Otsuka America Pharmaceutical, whose products include the heavily advertised Rexulti, has found a corporate mission in supporting family caregivers.

The latest example of its two-year-old corporate initiative: “Caregiving," a two-hour PBS documentary executive-produced by Bradley Cooper and narrated by Uzo Aduba, which began streaming today prior to a broadcast premiere on June 24. You can watch it here.

“This is the story of paid and unpaid caregivers navigating the challenges and joys of this deeply meaningful work,” says PBS.

“As a nation, we are at an inflection point where the pressure on caregivers is becoming insurmountable,” declared Tarek Rabah, president and CEO of Otsuka North America Pharmaceutical Business, in a statement encouraging viewers to “advocate for expanded benefits, increased funding, and comprehensive support services.”

The doc’s premiere comes exactly a week after the release of an Otsuka-sponsored study by the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health that categorized 24 states as “critical” or at “high risk” of an unpaid caregiving crisis.

Titled “America’s Unseen Workforce: The State of Family Caregiving,” the report found that family caregivers perform an estimated $873.5 billion worth of mostly unpaid labor annually.

The 24 states include Florida (“critical”), with a caregiver valuation of $60.6 billion, “surpassing the economic impact of Walt Disney World Resort”; and California (“high-risk”), leading the nation with a caregiver valuation of $122.3 billion, “more than double the state’s $59 billion agriculture industry.”

Then, there are the 32 states with predominantly rural populations. Together, they account for over $375 billion in caregiving labor, with a shortage of healthcare workers compounding the challenge on families “to access necessary support.”

The largest driver of family caregiving is dementia, which contributes to more than $340 billion of labor, especially “in states with aging and high-risk populations,” the report found.

(Rexulti is indicated both as an add-on for depression treatment, as shown in this commercial, and ”to treat agitation that may happen with dementia due to Alzheimer’s disease, as shown in this spot.)

“Achieving comprehensive change requires strong support and collaboration from both federal and state governments,” Debra Barrett, vice president, corporate affairs at Otsuka, said in a statement.

In particular, “states must advocate for funding to support programs that provide financial assistance, training, and respite care for unpaid family caregivers,” according to a press release. 

On the federal level, the report called for “investing in the long-term care workforce…This involves better training, higher wages, and finding long-term solutions for staffing challenges.”

In addition to the PBS documentary, produced by Washington D.C.’s WETA, and studies with Columbia University, Otsuka’s caregiving initiative also includes an educational video  and interactive storybook designed to help “sandwich generation” caregivers explain Alzheimer’s disease to their children. A Family Caregiver Calculator developed with Salary.com projects what the income would be for unpaid caregivers if they were compensated for their work. According to a related study, the average salary would be about $114,000.