Exploring ethno-cultural variations in how older Canadians define healthy aging: The Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA)

Insights from neighbourhood walking interviews using the Living Environments and Active Aging Framework (LEAAF) in community-dwelling older adults

We aimed to understand whether neighbourhood characteristics are associated with movement and social behaviors using walking interviews with 28 community-dwelling older adults (aged 65+). Results indicated support for each component and each relationship in our proposed "Living Environments and Active Aging Framework". Additional themes such as neighbourhoods with children, moving to neighbourhoods with opportunities for social activity and movement, and lingering effects of pandemic closures provided novel insights into the relationship between the living environment (neighbourhood) and active aging. Future work exploring sex and gender effects on these relationships, and work with equity-deserving groups is needed.

Healthy aging, self-care, and choice in India: Class-based engagements with globally circulating ideologies

Euro-American notions of successful and healthy aging are taking root globally, shaped and inflected by local cultural and political contexts. India is one place where globally inflected discourses of healthy, active, and successful aging are on the rise. However, notions about just what constitutes healthy aging and how to achieve such a goal do not play out the same way across the globe. This article explores how older Indians of diverse social classes are thinking about their own lives in relation to broader discourses of healthy aging circulating within India and abroad. Analyses of in-depth interviews with 25 individuals (11 women and 14 men, ages 57 to 81, across a range of social classes) reveal that while many among the urban elite are enjoying participating in a globally informed healthy-aging culture, such trends are not at all widespread among the non-elite. Moreover, Indians across social classes tend to interpret their own "healthy aging" goals in ways at odds with their perceptions of Western paradigms of healthy and successful aging, sometimes incorporating critiques of the West into their own reflections about health and well-being in later life. By examining how healthy-successful aging ideologies play out across divergent national-cultural and social-class contexts, our aim is to challenge universalizing models and heighten understanding of social inequalities while opening up a wider set of possibilities for imagining what it is to live meaningfully in later life.

How age and health status impact attitudes towards aging and technologies in care: a quantitative analysis

BACKGROUND

Increasing proportions of geriatric patients pose tremendous challenges for our society. Developments in assistive technologies have the potential to support older and frail people in aging and care. To reach a sustainable adoption of these technologies, the perceptions and wishes of future users must be understood. In particular, the relationships between individual health-related factors, and the perceptions of aging and using assistive technologies in severe health situations must be empirically examined.

METHODS

Addressing this research gap, our quantitative study (N = 570) investigates the impact of diverse future users' age and health status on their a) perceptions of aging, b) perceptions and acceptance of using assistive technologies in aging and care, as well as c) end-of-life decisions regarding technology usage. For this, four groups were segmented for the comparison of younger (< 50 years) healthy, younger chronically ill, older (50 + years) healthy, and older chronically ill participants.

RESULTS

The results revealed that health status is more decisive for age-related perceptions compared to age. The technology-related perceptions were slightly impacted by either chronological age or health status. The end-of-life decisions showed the most striking differences in the willingness to use assistive technologies, revealing older chronically ill participants to have more restrained attitudes towards technology usage than older healthy as well as all younger participants.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings suggest that the benefits of assistive technologies in private or professional care contexts should be communicated and implemented tailored to the respective user group's needs. Moreover, the results allow us to derive practical implications within the geriatric care context.

"Think positive and don't die alone" - Foreign-born, South Asian older adults' perceptions on healthy aging

South Asians are the largest and fastest-growing racialized group in Canada, yet there are limited data on various aspects of health and well-being within this population. This includes the South Asian older adults' ethnoculturally informed perceptions of ageing. The study aimed to understand how social and cultural forces impact the meaning assigned to healthy ageing amongst older South Asians in Canada. We recruited with purposeful and snowball sampling strategies in Southern Ontario. We conducted in-depth focus group and individual interviews (n = 19) in five South Asian languages, employing a multilingual and cross-cultural qualitative approach. In our analysis, we identified three central themes: (a) taking care of body (b) taking care of mind and heart and (c) healthy ageing through the integration of mind and body. Our study demonstrates that older immigrants are a diverse and heterogeneous population and that their conception of healthy ageing is strongly influenced by their country of origin. This study also demonstrates how racialized foreign-born older adults might provide distinctive perspectives on the ageing process and on social theories of ageing due to their simultaneous immersion in and belonging to global majority and global minority cultures. This research also adds to the limited body of literature on the theories of ageing, despite migration trends, still has a white-centric lens.

Alaska native successful ageing in Northwest Alaska: how family impacts how one ages in a good way

aged well, yet today they experience high rates of illness and lower access to care because of colonisation. Aand this research explores successful ageing from an AN perspective or what it means to achieve "Eldership" in the rural Northwest Alaska. A community-based participatory research approach was used to engage participants at every stage of the research process. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 16 AN men and 25 women and the interviews were professionally transcribed. Kleinman's explanatory model served as the foundation of the questionnaire to gain a sense of the beliefs about ageing and guide the thematic analysis to establish an AN understanding of successful ageing. The foundation of the Norton Sound southern sub-region Model of Successful Ageing is the reciprocal relationship between Elders and family which enables Elders to access meaningful activities, including Native ways of life, physical health, spirituality, and emotional well-being. Community-based interventions should foster opportunities for Elders to share their Native way of life alongside family and community members, which will enable them to remain physically active, maintain healthy emotional well-being, continue engaging in spiritual practices, and contribute to the health and well-being of families.

The evolutionary trends of health inequality among elderly Chinese people and influencing factors of these trends from 2005 to 2017

Reducing health inequality and ensuring national health equity have become issues of great concern to all countries in the world. This paper based on the ordered Probit model and concentrated index decomposition method, analysed the influencing factors and evolution trend of health inequality among the elderly with high age in China from 2005 to 2017. The study found that in 2005-2017, the self-rated health distribution of the elderly with high age in China showed an obvious inverted "U" shape, with the proportion of general and relatively healthy being the largest, while the proportion of unhealthy and very healthy was lower. Lifestyle, family income, and age were the main important factors to expand health inequality. Therefore, encouraging the elderly with high age to develop good living habits and narrowing the income gap of the elderly are conducive to solving the health inequality of the elderly with high age and achieving the goals of active ageing and healthy ageing.

The Text4HealthyAging Program: An Evidence-Based Text Messaging Innovation to Support Healthy Urban Aging in Canada and Australia

Age-friendly cities are crucial to achieve the WHO goal of healthy aging. Such cities promote opportunities for health, participation, and security, thus enhancing quality of life as people age. Older people commonly experience psychosocial challenges such as anxiety, depression, substance abuse, loss of autonomy, grief, fear, and loneliness. Australian and Canadian cities continue to seek innovation to improve healthy urban aging and create more age-friendly environments for older adults. There is increasing evidence on the effectiveness and feasibility of mobile technology in health promotion and closing psychological treatment gaps. Older adults have been demonstrated to engage frequently with mobile devices, particularly text messaging. In this article, we conceptualize the Text4HealthyAging, an evidence-based text messaging innovation to support healthy urban aging in Canadian and Australian cities.

Aging Well for Indigenous Peoples: A Scoping Review

As life expectancy increases for Indigenous populations, so does the number of older adults with complex, chronic health conditions and age-related geriatric syndromes. Many of these conditions are associated with modifiable lifestyle factors that, if addressed, may improve the health and wellbeing of Indigenous peoples as they age. If models of healthy aging are to be promoted within health services, a clearer understanding of what aging well means for Indigenous peoples is needed. Indigenous peoples hold a holistic worldview of health and aging that likely differs from Western models. The aims of this review were to: investigate the literature that exists and where the gaps are, on aging well for Indigenous peoples; assess the quality of the existing literature on Indigenous aging; identify the domains of aging well for Indigenous peoples; and identify the enablers and barriers to aging well for Indigenous peoples. A systematic search of online databases, book chapters, gray literature, and websites identified 32 eligible publications on Indigenous aging. Reflexive thematic analysis identified four major themes on aging well: (1) achieving holistic health and wellbeing; (2) maintaining connections; (3) revealing resilience, humor, and a positive attitude; and (4) facing the challenges. Findings revealed that aging well is a holistic concept enabled by spiritual, physical, and mental wellbeing and where reliance on connections to person, place, and culture is central. Participants who demonstrated aging well took personal responsibility, adapted to change, took a positive attitude to life, and showed resilience. Conversely, barriers to aging well arose from the social determinants of health such as lack of access to housing, transport, and adequate nutrition. Furthermore, the impacts of colonization such as loss of language and culture and ongoing grief and trauma all challenged the ability to age well. Knowing what aging well means for Indigenous communities can facilitate health services to provide culturally appropriate and effective care.

Optimising social conditions to improve autonomy in communication and care for ethnic minority residents in nursing homes: A meta-synthesis of qualitative research

A large proportion of nursing home residents in developed countries come from ethnic minority groups. Unmet care needs and poor quality of care for this resident population have been widely reported. This systematic review aimed to explore social conditions affecting ethnic minority residents' ability to exercise their autonomy in communication and care while in nursing homes. In total, 19 studies were included in the review. Findings revealed that ethno-specific nursing homes create the ideal social condition for residents to express their care needs and preferences in a language of choice. In nonethno-specific nursing homes, staff cultural competence and nursing home commitment to culturally safe care are crucial social conditions that enable this group of residents to fulfil their autonomy in communicating and in participating in their care. In contrast, social conditions that undermine residents' ability to express their care needs and preferences include low levels of staff cultural awareness and cultural desire, negative attitudes towards residents and limited organisational support for staff to improve culturally responsive and culturally safe care. In conclusion, it is important to optimise the social conditions to support ethnic minority residents to communicate their care needs and preferences.

Insights Into the Older Adults' World: Concepts of Aging, Care, and Using Assistive Technology in Late Adulthood

The ongoing demographic change forces different stakeholders to cope with increasing needs in nursing care and the economic costs. Consequences arising from the population aging can be supported by assistive technologies to maintain older individuals' autonomy. However, older adults' opinions on the assistance of health-related technologies and their attitudes toward aging and care largely remain underexplored. This paper provides a geriatric and socio-technical perspective, investigating individual perceptions of (a) aging, (b) nursing care, and (c) the adoption of assistive technologies in a cross-national subject group. For this purpose, N = 384 individuals (60+ years) participated in an online survey. Findings indicate that most older adults are open to assistive technologies and that individual care preferences contribute to a successful adoption of these technologies. Among individual factors, health status, and gender affect respondents' opinions the most. Our findings help to understand older adults' acceptance of assistive technologies and contribute to the research on the nursing care in private and professional environments.