Projects

Barriers in health and social care access for elder orphans: A scoping review of the literature

This study involves a systematic scoping review of peer-reviewed primary research studies to identify and articulate what is currently known regarding the barriers and facilitators of health and social care access and systems navigation for isolated older adults who are without informal or familial care support. This subpopulation, primarily known in the research literature as elder orphans, has been a growing topic of research interest in recent years. Several articles on the broad subject have also been published. While the topic of elder orphanhood or aging without advocates is not new, a scoping review will be conducted to provide a comprehensive overview and synthesis of the evidence published to date on this population’s experience of care access and systems navigation. This review will be the first of its kind conducted on this topic. It will provide an opportunity to identify key concepts, gaps in research, and types and sources of evidence, yielding an important contribution to this area.

Barriers in health and social care access for older Canadians without informal support: A qualitative interview study

A growing number of people are aging with limited informal (family or friend) care support. This population is known as Older Adults Without Advocates (OAWAs). OAWAs may be placed at-risk of early transition to long-term care, avoidable hospitalization, and a range of negative physical and psychological health outcomes. Further, Informal carers often serve as the main point of contact for older people with the formal care services and assist in them in navigating fragmented care systems. OAWAs may be at enhanced risk of inequitable access to care services needed to support their wellbeing.

This project seeks to identify and articulate the barriers experienced by OAWAs in accessing and navigating health and social care services and systems, as well as factors that may improve their accesses to needed services. This will be achieved through performing interviews with Subject Matter Experts on this topic, including patient advocates or care navigators, clinicians, community-based organizational staff, social service workers, and older adults meeting OAWA status. The interviews will identify the features of care services and systems (e.g., geographic availability, cost) and personal circumstances (e.g., health beliefs, physical mobility) that impact OAWAs access to services. SMEs will provide their perspectives on priorities for action to address access barriers for this population.

Characteristics and unmet care needs of isolated older Canadians without informal support: Analysis of the CLSA

This study involves a secondary analysis of the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA). The CLSA is large-scale, nationally representative health survey dataset collecting information from participants across all 10 Canadian provinces. It collects extensive data and biological samples every 3 years that may be used in application to a diverse array of research questions related to aging and aging processes. The study sample is comprised of more than 50,000 individuals (n=51,338) who were between the ages of 45 and 85 at the time of recruitment. The purpose of this study is to:

(a) create a sociodemographic, socio-economic, and health-related profile of older Canadians who are isolated and with limited informal care support-- known as older adults without advocates (OAWAs)--, older adults at-risk of this status, and older adults who do not meet this status

(b) Compare the estimated prevalence of the reported unmet health care service needs, the reasons for these unmet needs, and frequency of contact with primary and secondary care service providers among OAWAs, older adults at-risk of OAWA status, and older adults who are not OAWAs.