Department of Community Health Sciences, Rady Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Manitoba, Canada.
J Aging Stud. 2020 Mar;52:100834. doi: 10.1016/j.jaging.2020.100834. Epub 2020 Mar 4.
An understanding of how older adults conceptualize healthy aging is important for the development of policies, programs, and services designed to promote health; this understanding must reflect the ethno-cultural diversity of the population. This pilot study aimed to examine Canadians' definitions of healthy aging and ethno-cultural variations in these definitions. The baseline data for a sub-sample (n = 535) of the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA) Tracking Cohort (n = 21,241) were examined. Narrative responses to an open-ended question on healthy aging were analyzed using a previously developed coding system. The most common themes for all the ethno-cultural groups were "lifestyle", "physical activity", and "attitude"; other themes varied by ethno-cultural background. These findings demonstrate that older Canadians from various ethno-cultural backgrounds define healthy aging differently. These variations must be taken into consideration for developing culturally sensitive programs to promote healthy aging among all Canadians. Theorizing on healthy (or 'successful') aging must envision it as a subjective and multidimensional concept.
理解老年人如何概念化健康老龄化对于制定旨在促进健康的政策、计划和服务非常重要；这种理解必须反映人口的种族文化多样性。这项初步研究旨在探讨加拿大人对健康老龄化的定义以及这些定义在种族文化上的差异。对加拿大老龄化纵向研究（CLSA）跟踪队列（n=21241）的一个子样本（n=535）的基线数据进行了检查。使用先前开发的编码系统对健康老龄化的开放式问题的叙述性回答进行了分析。所有种族文化群体最常见的主题是“生活方式”、“体育活动”和“态度”；其他主题因种族文化背景而异。这些发现表明，来自不同种族文化背景的加拿大老年人对健康老龄化的定义不同。在制定促进所有加拿大人健康老龄化的文化敏感计划时，必须考虑到这些差异。关于健康（或“成功”）老龄化的理论化必须将其视为一个主观和多维的概念。
