Research Spotlight: Rural Aging Research Program

Trent University's Rural Aging Research Program works towards building new knowledge, collaborations and capacity aimed at better understanding and informing how rural communities are responding to population aging. They carry out projects related to rural aging, aging rural communities, rural age-friendly sustainability, social inclusion and voluntarism, the pedagogy of aging, rural planning and policy, and interdisciplinary aging studies. You can find out more about their program of research and access some of their journal articles and research reports here.

New Research Reports on CORE

• Research Snapshot: The Value and Distribution of Family Caregiving in Canada [Janet Fast, Karen Duncan, Norah Keating, & Choong Kim]
• The Mental Health Benefits Of Men’s Sheds In Rural Alberta [Clark Banack, Kyle Whitfield, Serena Isley]

New Statistics Canada Research

Health of Canadians

This report provides a comprehensive overview of the state of population health in Canada using the most recent Statistics Canada data for health indicators in four domains: health outcomes, health behaviours and substance use, access to health care, and determinants of health.

Canadian Housing Statistics Program: A toolkit for understanding housing supply

This article provides a toolkit of indicators that can be used by researchers, practitioners and the public to describe housing dynamics from a supply-side lens. The toolkit is then used to illustrate trends in housing prices, supply and key determinants of residential construction over the past 12 years in Halifax, Montréal, Ottawa–Gatineau, Toronto, Edmonton and Vancouver.

New Journal Articles

Open Access Articles

Articles that are free and accessible to the general public.

Jones, C. A., Jhangri, G. S., Yamamoto, S. S., Hogan, D. B., Hanson, H., Levasseur, M., Morales, E., & Légaré, F. (2023). Social participation of older people in urban and rural areas: Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging. BMC Geriatrics, 23(1), 439–439. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12877-023-04127-2

Jones and colleagues analyzed data from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging to determine if there are differences between the social participation patterns of older adults in rural and urban settings. They found no differences in the frequency of participation. However, there were differences in the types of activities older adults participated in. Older adults in urban settings reported higher rates of participation in sports and educational/cultural events, while rural older adults reported higher rates of participation in service club activities.

Zapletal, A., Wells, T., Russell, E., & Skinner, M. W. (2023). On the triple exclusion of older adults during COVID-19: Technology, digital literacy and social isolation. Social sciences & humanities open, 8(1), 100511. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssaho.2023.100511

This article explores the experiences of 12 older adults who identified as non-users or occasional users of technology pre-pandemic. Interviews conducted with participants revealed they had mixed feelings towards digital technology, though many reported that they had increased their digital literacy skills due to the pandemic. The older adults reported technology was key to staying connected during the pandemic.