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Incorporating the voice of older adults into all phases of research has the potential to make findings more relevant and impactful. Beyond the direct benefit, researchers have an ethical obligation to elicit the contributions of older adults into their work. Recently, organizations such as the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute in the United States, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the National Institute of Health Research in the United Kingdom have stepped up to accelerate the incorporation of public and patient voice into research, resulting in innovative engagement strategies for involving stakeholders, including older adults in research. However, those who are physically and mentally capable are more often included in research than those with multiple chronic conditions or living with disabilities. The ability to incorporate older adult voice into research is possible and has provided tangible benefits to researchers. Older adults have expertise based on their lived experiences that can provide invaluable insights on how to conduct research with real-world applications. Programmes such as the Bureau of Sages have worked to implement and disseminate best practices and guidelines for incorporating the voice of older adults into research. Principles for engaging older adults include flexibility, mutual engagement of the older adult and the researcher, time for rapport building and partner development and increased focus on accessibility. By working to understand these principles and overcome challenges to incorporating older adult voice into research, research will be more meaningful and relevant to the public, and will inherently include a focus on translation of research into practice.

This study illustrates how youth and young adults use boundary-making processes to create a regulated community online.

Ethnographic methods are used to compare deviance models of internet participation with work on digital youth culture.

This paper finds that digital youth draw boundaries around three categories of participation (n00bs, trolls, and idols) to identify new people who need help, ward off bullies, and uphold community ideals.

Contrary to deviance perspectives, this study finds that digital youth use boundary-making processes to cultivate a civil online community.

The study examines how two types of trust – institutional and system trust – predict online banking intentions (OBI) as a function of generational cohort membership.

The study uses a cross-sectional survey of 559 U.S. Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) members using quota sampling from three generational groups: SGI (born before 1946), older boomer (born 1946–1954), and millennial (born 1977–1992).

Results showed generational cohort differences in system and institutional trust as well as OBI. Serial mediation model results showed the model where institutional trust precedes system trust best explains the relationship between generational cohort membership and OBI.

While diverse, the sample comprised of MTurk workers and relied on self-report measures of behavioral intentions, thus limiting the generalizability of our findings.

This study introduces two levels of e-trust into the technology acceptance literature and provides a guideline for financial institutions and system designers to understand the role of trust in driving online service adoption and use for different generations.

This study explores generational differences in technology use with special focus on older adults, which is yet to be fully explored in the literature. This study differentiates between two levels of e-trust and explores the order in which both trust types mediate the relationship between generational cohort membership and OBI.

Purpose: This chapter explores the role of life course transitions, personal networks, community, and social support in the physical and mental health of LGBTQ+ elders. Specifically, we review the literature on formal and informal supports and resources available to LGBTQ+ elders as they age.

Methodology: We use an intersectional lens that explores dimensions of social identity and social location among diverse subpopulations within sexual and gender minority (SGM) elders. We outline the implications of access (or lack of access) to formal and informal care for SGM elders' physical and mental health and well-being in late life. We examine the availability of these supports in the context of broad inequalities and life events that structure the life course for LGBTQ+ elders and have long-term health implications.

Findings: Our findings from this review demonstrate how social factors over the life course shape SGM mental and physical health later in life for aging LGBTQ+ populations. We reflect on how strained relationships and lack of acceptance compel some to seek alternative sources of support and relationships. Our analysis uncovers individual and institutional sources of support: personal social networks and formal spaces, such as healthcare settings, that connect elders with resources to develop social support and avoid social isolation.

Implications: The implications of our review reveal the unique needs and barriers to practical and social support that SGM older adults face. We explore alternative supports that LGBTQ+ elders need compared with their heterosexual cisgender peers, given the disproportionate rejection they face in a range of public and intimate spaces. We conclude by identifying and celebrating sources of support and resilience as LGBTQ+ elders have crafted alternate support networks and advocated for increased recognition, rights, and care.

Originality and Value: Despite some recent flourishing of research in SGM health, a road map for scholars, practitioners, and community members outlining future research in understudied areas such as LGBTQ+ aging and transgender health would help advance scholarship and policy. Our commentary highlights quantitative and qualitative studies and suggests avenues for research that put in conversation literatures on rural studies, urban sociology, and social networks; gerontology; health; and gender/sexuality studies.

Issues and developments that have occurred in relation to elder abuse, specifically concerning the domestic setting, will be briefly explored. Over the last 15 years, there has been increasing global recognition of abuse and neglect of older people who might be at risk of such forms of harm, as a social problem needing attention. The role of the media and media representations of elder abuse are clearly of relevance here and are the main focus of this chapter.

Around 500,000 older people are believed to be abused at any one time in the United Kingdom, with most victims of elder abuse being older women with a chronic illness or disability, according to statistics provided by the government information service (NHS Digital, 2019). Most of the abuse recorded relates to domestic settings within communities.

Gender-based violence and abuse amongst older women may be overlooked by health and social care providers. For older women, their gender seems to be forgotten or becomes hidden. Media representation of abuse against older people, particularly older women, does not assist this situation.

Against the backdrop of the global ageing population, it is fundamental that the particular experiences, needs and rights of older people are adequately understood, and that health and care professionals respond appropriately. This chapter explores these issues, in particular the role of the digital media and representations of elder abuse in familial settings and its impact on victims, potential victims, perpetrators, health and social care service providers and the general public.

Purpose: The aim of the study is to consider the use of the Internet as a potential facilitator of positive health-related perceptions. Specifically, we propose that online health information seeking fosters positive perceptions of health. Using path modeling, we theorized several mechanisms through which information seeking could be conducive to positive health perceptions, which we conceptualized into the following four dimensions: (1) sense of empowerment in managing health, (2) self-reported ability to take better care of health, (3) sense of improved health-related quality of life, and (4) self-reported improvement of health.

Methodology: Our sample consisted of respondents who have used the Internet as a resource for health information (n = 710), drawn from the largest national probability-based online research panel. Our comparison subsample consisted of older respondents (age ≥ 60; n = 194). We used Internet-specific measures and employed structural equation models (SEM) to estimate the direct, indirect, and total effects of health-related use of the Internet on subjective health perceptions. Based on our review of the literature, competent health communication with healthcare providers and sense of empowerment in managing personal health were modeled as mediator variables. We assessed whether the proposed mediational relationships, if significant, differed across our indicators of positive health perceptions and whether any differential associations were observed among older adults. We run parallel models for each indicator of positive health perception.

Findings: Provider-patient communication informed by the Internet resources were perceived to impart a greater sense of empowerment to manage health among our respondents, which in turn, was associated with perceived contributions to better self-reported ability to provide self-care, increased health-related quality of life, and improvement in self-reported health. The SEM results revealed a good fit with our full sample and subsample.

Research Implications: Conceptualization of the multidimensional aspects of online health information seeking with separate multi-indicator analyses of the outcome variable is important to further our understanding of how technology may impact the pathways involved in influencing health perceptions and as a result health outcomes.

Since 2000, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of individuals using the Internet, including for health purposes. Internet usage has increased from 46% of adults in 2000 to 79% in 2010. The purpose of this chapter is to examine changes in one type of Internet usage: online health searching. We examine the impact of traditional digital inequality factors on online health searching, and whether these patterns have changed over time.

Using data from five surveys ranging from 2002 to 2010 (n = 5,967 for all five surveys combined), we examine changing patterns of online health searching over the past decade.

Effects vary by inequality factor and time period examined. Despite the diffusion of the Internet, most of these gaps persist, and even strengthen, over time. Gender, age, and education gaps persist over time and appear to be increasing. An exception to this is the importance of broadband connection.

Since these data were collected, the use of mobile devices to access the Internet has increased. Research is needed on types of access and devices used for online health activities.

Larger scale inequalities play important roles in online health searching. Providing access and skills in evaluating online health information is needed for older and less educated groups. The results of this study have implications for the de-professionalization of medical knowledge.

This is the first study to examine digital inequality factors in online health information seeking over the breadth of this time period.