First is a recognition that older adults are significantly impacted by humanitarian emergencies. The fact that people who are exposed to significant violence and physical and mental traumas may develop chronic health problems early in life that carry on for decades ought to be cause for alarm here. - ThreadSky

jwnickerson.bsky.social • 59 days ago

First is a recognition that older adults are significantly impacted by humanitarian emergencies. The fact that people who are exposed to significant violence and physical and mental traumas may develop chronic health problems early in life that carry on for decades ought to be cause for alarm here.

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jwnickerson.bsky.social•59 days ago

Second is that older adults are often systematically excluded as a priority population in humanitarian health responses - this is straight-up ageism. Older adults are systematically excluded from a lot of data collection and analyses, meaning we have little information on their needs or outcomes.

jwnickerson.bsky.social•59 days ago

The impact of this is that many health services aren't specifically designed to meet their needs. Illnesses more prevalent in older adults are not necessarily prioritized, health services are not accessible or age-appropriate for older adults with diverse health concerns, and more.

jwnickerson.bsky.social•59 days ago

We reviewed 56 studies in our review covering a wide range of crises and health issues. It's important to not try and group diverse contexts, crises, and populations together so we've tried to avoid this, but it's also important to try and give a general overview of what health needs are identified.

jwnickerson.bsky.social•59 days ago

There's significant heterogeneity in the populations, crises, contexts, settings, etc in the studies we identified. We've pulled out common themes and interesting findings, but this work is only a starting point for improving an understanding of the health needs of older adults in emergencies.

jwnickerson.bsky.social•59 days ago

Here are some findings that I found interesting and important:
We need to improve how we address the inaccessibility of health and social services in emergencies for people with mobility-related disabilities. Reaching health facilities, water/food distributions, etc. are all mobility-dependent.

jwnickerson.bsky.social•59 days ago

Mobility is obviously impaired by wars and natural disasters. For example, one study found that during the war in Iraq, injuries from falls among older adults occurred more frequently across all age categories due to a deterioration in infrastructure, such as collapsed sidewalks.
This makes sense.

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