The Inclusive Communities for Older Immigrants (ICOI) partnership will engage in a 7-year multidisciplinary, multi-sector, multi-province project that will build sustainable connections to generate knowledge about social isolation and connectedness among older immigrants, support multidirectional knowledge exchange, and improve older immigrants’ lives.
The (ICOI) partnership brings together 48 academic and 38 community partners in 9 cities in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, and Quebec. By examining the complex social, economic, and political factors related to social isolation/connectedness among older immigrants, we will develop, implement, and evaluate interventions to improve connectedness among an under-served population across Canada. The partnership builds collaboration across a range of academic and community connections to support cross-sectoral research and find effective interventions to promote social connectedness. Through multidirectional flows of knowledge and expertise, this work will inform practice, theory, and policy.
The ICOI Project Aims to:
Clarify intersecting factors affecting older immigrants social isolation vis-a-vis their social, economic, and political inclusion/exclusion in urban and suburban settings
Contribute to models related to social isolation/connectedness based on empirical data
Design, implement, and evaluate interventions to promote social connectedness
Develop sustainable knowledge-sharing and research collaborations among key players
Older adults are the fastest-growing subpopulation in Canada, projected to reach 25% of the population by 2030. In preparation, governments at all levels have committed to prioritizing their needs through the design and delivery of agefriendly initiatives, services, and cities. Despite these efforts, insufficient attention has been paid to the specific concerns of older immigrants, who comprise 30% of all older adults in Canada, and more in major cities like Toronto (65%) and Vancouver (50%). A critical but unaddressed issue is social isolation of older immigrants, which limits their community and civic engagement, reduces income security, and increases risk of elder abuse, disability, and early death. All older adults are vulnerable to isolation, but older immigrants are at greater risk due to migration-related social, cultural, and economic challenges that affect their sense of isolation/connectedness.
Theoretical Approaches
The proposed study will integrate an intersectionality lens, ecosystemic frameworks, and complexity theory. These lenses helps consider not only the individuial level efects of intersecting factors related to social identity (such as gender, race, class, sexual orientation, immigration) but also how individuals are influenced by factors operating at the micro- (family), meso- (community), and macro- (society) level. Understanding the individual experiences and responses of older adults must also take into account the systems and power relations that create inequity in accessing basic needs such as housing, work, healthcare, and transport; Complexity theory will help clarify the interactions between social policy and systems in thinking through how interventions involve dynamic and complex processes that are adaptable to different agents and multi-layered contexts. These 3 theoretical approaches will help yield interventions that reflect the complex ways that an individual’s capacity, resilience, and wellbeing are shaped by social, political, and economic inclusion.
Project Phases
Using critical ethnography and mixed methods, the project will be carried out in 4 phases to
1) establish which social, economic, and political factors most strongly contribute to social isolation/connectedness among older immigrants;
2) identify and assess interventions used in fostering social connectedness;
3) co-design multi-level, multi-component interventions to promote social connectedness among older adults in the three communities and build community capacity via implementation with community partners; and
4) evaluate the interventions’ feasibility, fidelity of implementation, and effectiveness.
We will engage in multi-directional knowledge mobilization activities throughout the project, with close and frequent engagement with our community partners. The extensive experience of our academic team in conducting multiphase, cross-national, research projects will ensure ICOI’s success and the timely completion of activities. Findings will yield a comprehensive understanding of how to reduce older immigrant’s isolation, build capacity and resilience, and ultimately foster social connectedness, civic society participation, and quality of life among older immigrants.
Research Streams
The ICOI partnership will engage in 3 Research Streams – social inclusion, economic inclusion, and political inclusion – to ensure the comprehensiveness of our emerging theoretical and practice model in addressing the range of factors contributing to social isolation among older immigrants (tentatively depicted here)
