Search

Background: Health education is one of the proven ways to improve knowledge and change health attitudes and behaviors. This study is intended to assess the effectiveness of five health workshops in a Chinese community, focusing on depression, elder abuse, nutrition, breast cancer and stroke. Methods: A community-based participatory research approach was implemented to plan and organize the workshops. A total of 236 Chinese community-dwelling older adults participated in different health workshops. Quantitative questionnaires on knowledge, risk factors and outcomes of each health topic were distributed before and after the workshop. Pre and post workshop comparison analyses were conducted to examine the effectiveness of the workshops on knowledge and learning. Results: Overall, the health workshops have significantly improved participants' understanding throughout the five health themes (P<0.05). Whereas Chinese older adults have limited knowledge on depression, nutrition and stroke, their health knowledge regarding depression and elder abuse were significantly improved after attending the workshops. In addition, health education workshops increased older adults' understanding of the risk factors and consequences of depression, elder abuse and breast cancer. Conclusion: This study sheds light on the importance of promoting health education, and the complexity and challenges of designing health education for community dwelling Chinese older adults. Significant implications for researchers, community service providers, health service workers and policy makers are discussed.

Objective: To determine the association between country-level structural ageism and prevalence of violence against older persons., Design: Country-level ecological study., Setting: Structural ageism data were drawn from the nationally representative World Values Survey 2010-2014 (WVS), global databases from the WHO, United Nations and the World Bank. Violence data were based on the Global Burden of Diseases (GBD) study 2017., Participants: Analysis of 56 countries that represented 63.1% of the world's ageing population aged 60 and over across all six of WHO regions., Exposure: Structural ageism, following established structural stigma measures, consisted of two components: (1) discriminatory national policies related to older persons' economic, social, civil and political rights, based on the four core components of human rights protection in Madrid International Plan of Action on Aging and (2) prejudicial social norms against older persons, measured by negative attitudes toward older persons in 56 national polls in WVS aggregated to country-level. These components were z scored and combined such that higher score indicated greater structural ageism., Main Outcomes and Measures: Prevalence rates of violence per 100 000 persons aged 70 and over in each country was based on extensive epidemiological surveillance data, survey, clinical data and insurance claims in GBD and compiled by the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation, University of Washington., Results: There was a wide variation in levels of structural ageism across countries. As predicted, structural ageism was significantly associated with the prevalence rates of violence in multivariate models (β=205.7, SE=96.3, p=0.03), after adjusting for relevant covariates. Sensitivity analyses supported the robustness of our findings. That is, structural ageism did not predict other types of violence and other types of prejudice did not predict violence against older persons., Conclusions: This study provides the first evidence of the association between higher structural ageism and greater violence against older persons across countries., Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2021. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)

The objective of this study is to examine the cultural views of healthy aging, knowledge and barriers to services, and perception of health sciences research among community-dwelling Chinese older adults in Chicago's Chinatown. This qualitative study is guided by the Precede-Proceed conceptual model with community-based participatory research design. Data analysis is based on eight focus group interviews with Chinese older (age 60+) adults (n = 78). We used a grounded theory framework to systematically guide the thematic structure of our data. Findings show participants described cultural conception of health in terms of physical function, psychological well-being, social support, and cognitive function. The availability, affordability, and cultural barriers towards health care services were major negative enabling factors that inhibit participants from fulfilling health needs. Perception and knowledge of health sciences research were also discussed. This study has implications for the delivery of culturally appropriate health care services to the Chinese aging population.