The proposed 36 month study is designed to examine the influence of the refugee experience on awareness, expectations, and access regarding long- term care services for the aged living in the community. In particular, we wish to examine the experiences of two minority refugee populations from Southeast Asia (Cambodian and Vietnamese) and contrast them with the experiences of two non-minority refugee groups from the former Soviet Union, Jews and Ukrainians. We propose to conduct the study by interviewing 128 respondents from each community. The respondents will be women who immigrated to the United States from the countries in question during the last 10 years. Each of the respondents will have at least one elder for whom she has primary responsibility. In addition, we will interview 30 of the elders identified by the primary respondents. We hypothesize that five domains, 1) the structure of the social service network for each of the four groups, 2) socio-economic status, 3) level of acculturation of the respondent and her family, 4) the level of need, in terms of cognitive and physical health status of the elder and of the primary respondent, and 5) life experiences, especially contact with health and social service agencies over the life span, help determine awareness, expectations, and access for these populations. Family life, environmental circumstances before and after immigration, and previous experiences with social welfare and health organizations are presumed determinants of experience with long-term care health and social services for these populations. The instruments will include both closed and open-ended questions. Standard measures of various domains of well-being, as well as scales designed to measure service utilization, will be administered. Open-ended questions will concern the life experience, attitudes, and knowledge of the respondents about long-term care services. An analysis of responses to the open-ended and close-ended questions will allow us to better understand the life experiences of members of these communities, as well as their relation to long-term care services for elders. Analysis of responses from the elders will enhance understanding of their perceptions of care as well as intergenerational relations within these minority and non-minority refugee populations. Together, this analysis will enable us to better understand and deal with service and health delivery to these populations.
| Strumpf, N E; Glicksman, A; Goldberg-Glen, R S et al. (2001) Caregiver and elder experiences of Cambodian, Vietnamese, Soviet Jewish, and Ukrainian refugees. Int J Aging Hum Dev 53:233-52 |
