Grant: Planning and Dissemination Grant - Institute Community Support

Physicians play a pivotal role in delivering primary and specialized healthcare to the aging immigrant population in Canada. While much research has examined the linguistic barriers immigrants encounter when accessing healthcare in general, less attention has focused on older immigrants' access to physicians, which are culturally and linguistically diverse and geographically clustered. The unequal spatial distribution of physicians across different urban and suburban neighbourhoods, as well as the rapidly evolving residential patterns of immigrant seniors create an alarming location and language discordance, or mismatch, between physician location and socioeconomically disadvantaged and linguistically-challenged older immigrants. The low-density and car-centric geography in the suburbs exacerbates this level of discordance. This discordance may lead to adverse outcomes for both the individuals and the healthcare system, as the cost of care may be much higher if a senior citizen's emerging health needs are not addressed in an efficient and timely manner. This project aims to bring together community members, community organizations and healthcare practitioners to generate knowledge of the barriers to and facilitators of older immigrants' use of culturally and linguistically accessible physician services. Locally relevant health programs and interventions will be explored to close the language and spatial gap in order to improve seniors' access to healthcare and their overall physical and mental well-being. This project will advance research on healthcare access for older immigrants and lay the groundwork for future inter-sectoral collaboration research. The project outcomes will provide practical implications for practitioners to deliver culturally-accessible health care and for community brokers to develop and implement programs to facilitate healthcare access to older immigrants, which are key to ensuring the healthy aging of immigrants in Canada.