Healthy Aging of Minority and Immigrant Populations: Resilience in Late Life
Minority and immigrant groups of older adults are some of the fastest growing elderly populations in the United States. Factors such as limited access to healthcare, language barrier and cultural mistrust associated with minority and/or immigration status can negatively affect elder’s health. Resilience is argued of being relevant to healthy aging (or successful and productive aging) (Foster, 1997; Fry & Keyes, 2010; Whittington, 2014). However, the conceptualization of resilience has been criticized as it reflects the experiences of privileged groups and contributing to the marginalization of others (Becker & Newsom, 2005; Dillaway & Byrnes, 2009). Also, available resilience studies often emphasize its psychometric properties but fail to examine it in the context of community living. This study is to (1) document the connectedness and social-economic resources, two key resilience components, among community-dwelling Asian and African American older adults; (2) describe how race/ethnicity and immigration experience have shaped elders’ view of connectedness and social-economic resources in the community; and (3) explore elders’ perception of a satisfactory health trajectory given their capacities of mobilizing resources to meet their needs in healthcare.
Method:
This study includes seventeen community-dwelling elderly Asian and African American residents of New Orleans (age 65 and above). Participants were recruited through five senior programs offered in local communities. Data collection started with non-participant observations and followed by semi-structured interviews. The participant’s family situation, experience of being an older minority/immigrant in the community, perceptions and behaviors of networking and involvement within their community, and health status were collected. The study began with cross-case analysis of four participants, using the constant comparison method to group data into common themes and to analyze different perspectives on central issues. Emergent themes were refined throughout the rest of data collection and analysis, continuously feeding back into the process of coding with new relationships discovered (Goetz & LeCompte, 1981).
Results:
In this study, community-dwelling minority elders maintained engaging relationships with their family members; however acculturation, gender, and health status have influenced their networking behaviors and social connectedness in the community. African American elders described more social-economic resources embedded in the community than their Asian peers, primarily due to their strong bonding with the neighborhood, perceived ownership of the community, and/or shared community experience. Well-connected elders have been able to mobilize family and community resources to assist them in maintaining and/or improving their overall health. Despite the age-related declines in functional abilities, many elders in this study rated their health status highly positive, appeared strengthened and resourceful, and demonstrated determination and flexibility during interviews.
Implications:
Findings indicate that effective measures (i.e., culturally appropriate and community-based) to promote resilience (e.g., community connectedness) are likely to have a positive effect on longevity of the elderly. For minority/migrant older adults, resilience offers a life strategy of coping cumulative adversities or vulnerabilities as a result of structured racial discrimination, and/or stressful experience of migration and adaption. From this perspective, their resilience might heavily rely on collective community identity and resources, thus questioning the conventional psychological oriented conceptualization of resilience.