Abstract
Older immigrants are generally found to be less likely than their Canadian-born counterparts to seek hospital care and other healthcare services. This study provides insight into healthcare utilization patterns and barriers from the perspectives of older immigrants and their caregivers, and the healthcare social workers assisting them. The research examines five predisposing factors, nine enabling factors, and physical and mental need factors in Andersen’s behavioral model that affect healthcare access. While social workers and multidisciplinary professionals can make efforts to improve mutable factors, such as providing information through community networking and improving the quality and availability of translators in healthcare settings, the factors that acquire mixed levels of mutability-for example, health beliefs and perceived needs, and immigrant status and health insurancerequire long-term commitments of public education and policy change.
Highlights
According to the 2006 Census, 30% of seniors in Canada are immigrants [1]
Purposive sampling was applied to recruit individuals who were 60 years of age or older, were born outside of Canada and immigrated as adults, whose first language was neither English nor French, and who had experience using healthcare services from hospitals, homecare facilities, and community services within the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority (WRHA)
Older immigrant healthcare users and healthcare social workers in this study reported a variety of issues in predisposing, enabling, and need factors in accessing healthcare
Summary
According to the 2006 Census, 30% of seniors in Canada are immigrants [1]. One out of every five adults aged 65 and older in Canada is a first-generation immigrant [1,2,3]. Many studies have been conducted to identify the challenges for vulnerable groups, including older immigrants, in accessing healthcare services [10,11,12]. Various studies present significant findings based on quantitative data generated by surveys or censuses that depict the “results” of a series of social and individual behaviors in utilization of healthcare [6,10,13]. Explanations for those behaviors, are often missing. This study aims to deepen the understanding of the factors that affect older immigrants’ access to health care from the perspective of older immigrants
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