Social and physical environments offering culturally appropriate activities and services essential for foreign-born visible minorities.
According to a study by the Centre for Hip Health and Mobility (CHHM), foreign-born visible minority older adults in South Vancouver are meeting their daily physical recommendations despite multiple health challenges, including arthritis, osteoporosis, and visual impairments.
“The purpose of our study is to understand how to design a neighborhood, including supports and services, that allows foreign-born older adults to age independently in their own communities,” explains Catherine Tong, doctoral trainee at CHHM and VCH Research Institute.
“We heard repeatedly that South Vancouver’s culturally-appropriate shops, services, and activities offered in their first languages get our participants out the door and moving their bodies.”
Same-language family physicians also proved highly influential.
“Almost every participant told us: ‘It’s my doctor telling me to get out and do those walks’,” explains Tong. “It really speaks to the significant service and preventative health function that same-language care professionals are providing, which they may not even recognize.”
Participants’ native languages included Cantonese, Mandarin, Hindi, and Punjabi. The study’s main population groups were Chinese and South Asian older adults.
While walking around their neighbourhoods provided much of their daily-required physical activity, participants were also active through gardening, errands, and housekeeping,.
Study design and methodology built on community partnerships
Community partnerships were an integral part of the study’s design and execution. South Vancouver Neighbourhood House (SVNH) was a grant co-applicant for the study and researchers worked closely with the SVNH seniors advisory council to guide study questions and refine the study’s sampling framework.
Led by the principal investigator, Dr. Joanie Sims-Gould, Tong and her team plan to bring results back into the community in 2014 and continue working closely with community partners in South Vancouver, such as SVNH.
“We can now show the activities local citizens are engaging in, their priorities, and the needs they’ve expressed,” Tong adds. “Ultimately, we hope our findings will translate into programs that help communities meet their foreign-born older adult population’s needs.”
