The process of aging may be inevitable, but a recent study shows that the aging experience for Canada’s immigrants is worse than those born in Canada, and more policies and health interventions are needed to improve the experience and help older people age successfully.
Immigrants make up 21.9 per cent of the Canadian population, and while some studies have found that older immigrants often do better if they have strong social networks, social participation, and access to the internet, others have found that those who have recently immigrated may experience psychological distress as the adjust and potentially face economic hardships, negative employment experiences, lack of social support and ethnic discrimination.
And until recently, there have been few research studies on successful aging in Canada, with more being conducted in the U.S., Asia, and Europe.
WHAT DOES THE NEW RESEARCH SAY?
The recent longitudinal study published in the International journal of Environmental Research and Public Health found that Canadian born adults have a higher likelihood to achieve “successful aging” than their immigrant counterparts.
For the study, a random selection of 30,097 Canadian men and women from ages 45 to 85-years-old across seven provinces were chosen from the 2015-2018 cohort of the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging.
The researchers examined four domains: physical wellness, psychological and emotional wellness, social wellness, and self rated wellness.
The study found 71.6 per cent of the non-immigrant participants were successful agers, while 65.5 per cent of the 1446 immigrant participants were successful agers.
The data showed that immigrants who experienced successful aging were tied to factors such as being younger, having a higher income, being married, not being obese, never having smoked, engaging in moderate or strenuous physical activities, not having sleeping problems and being free of heart disease or arthritis.
The concept of successful aging used as a framework for this study takes a wellness-oriented approach to gerontology, which is the study of physical, mental, and social changes in people as they age and the investigation of changes in society resulting from our aging population.
This approach to the concept is a conscious shift from the usual disease-focused examination of aging, according to the study authors.
The researchers collected data on respondents every three years for a minimum of 20 years, or until their death, to examine how the role of immigrant status factors into successful aging.
For the purpose of the study, factors such as adequate social support, the ability to accomplish daily living activities (ADLs) and instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs), freedom from mental illness, memory problems and disabling chronic pain, and the older adults’ self-reported happiness and subjective perception of their physical health, mental health and aging process as good, all fell under the umbrella of successful aging.
And for immigrants specifically, study authors concluded that more culturally appropriate services are needed in order to improve the aging experience, including financial aid and referral services.
The study says that expanded research of the successful aging population can lead to a better future for older Canadian adults as it will aid policy makers, researchers and social workers to develop stronger policies and interventions, conduct further relevant research and create a better understanding of the trajectories of successful aging.
And as the Government of Canada anticipates welcoming more than 400,000 immigrants each year between 2021 and 2023, this knowledge will be particularly informative to support adults in achieving successful aging.
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