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Revealing the shape of knowledge using an intersectionality lens: results of a scoping review on the health and health care of ethnocultural minority older adults

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 February 2012

SHARON KOEHN ,
SHEILA NEYSMITH ,
KAREN KOBAYASHI  and
HAMISH KHAMISA
SHARON KOEHN*
Affiliation:
Centre for Healthy Aging at Providence, Vancouver, Canada.
SHEILA NEYSMITH
Affiliation:
Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, University of Toronto, Canada.
KAREN KOBAYASHI
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology and Centre on Aging, University of Victoria, Canada.
HAMISH KHAMISA
Affiliation:
Centre for Healthy Aging at Providence, Vancouver, Canada.
*
Address for correspondence: Sharon Koehn, Centre for Healthy Aging at Providence, 4865 Heather St., Vancouver, BC V5Z 0B3, Canada. E-mail: skoehn@providencehealth.bc.ca
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Abstract

This paper uses an intersectionality theoretical lens to interrogate selected findings of a scoping review of published and grey literature on the health and health-care access of ethnocultural minority older adults. Our focus was on Canada and countries with similar immigrant populations and health-care systems. Approximately 3,300 source documents were reviewed covering the period 1980–2010: 816 met the eligibility criteria; 183 were Canadian. Summarised findings were presented to groups of older adults and care providers for critical review and discussion. Here we discuss the extent to which the literature accounts for the complexity of categories such as culture and ethnicity, recognises the compounding effects of multiple intersections of inequity that include social determinants of health as well as the specificities of immigration, and places the experience of those inequities within the context of systemic oppression. We found that Canada's two largest immigrant groups – Chinese and South Asians – had the highest representation in Canadian literature but, even for these groups, many topics remain unexplored and the heterogeneity within them is inadequately captured. Some qualitative literature, particularly in the health promotion and cultural competency domains, essentialises culture at the expense of other determinants and barriers, whereas the quantitative literature suffers from oversimplification of variables and their effects often due to the absence of proportionally representative data that captures the complexity of experience in minority groups.

Keywords

ethnocultural minority older adultshealthhealth carescoping reviewintersectionalityimmigrantvisible minorityCanada
Type
Articles
Information
Ageing & Society , Volume 33 , Issue 3 , April 2013 , pp. 437 - 464
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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