Data access has been approved for a research study to better understand how access to care (both in-person and virtually) for older adults in British Columbia changed during the pandemic.
The project is lead by Dr. Anh Pham, Senior Postdoctoral Fellow at the Pacific Institute on Pathogens, Pandemics and Society, with support from Dr. Julia Smith, Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University.
“Our project aims to examine and understand the pattern, type, and characteristics of services available for and used by older adults in primary care settings and compare these trends pre-, peri-, and post-pandemic to investigate changes and differences in practice,” says Dr. Pham. “We can then identify gaps and difficulties in primary care access.”
For the project PopData will link six data sets from the BC Ministry of Health with data from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada and the BC Index of Multiple Depravation. Administrative data before COVID-19 (2018-2019), during COVID-19 (2020-2021) and after COVID-19 (2022-2023) will be used to form a cohort of people aged 65 and older in 2023. Descriptive and intersectional analysis will be performed.
The project will provide new evidence on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on older adults’ access to care and how this interacts with health, social and economic inequities. “We will ensure this knowledge is communicated to and applied by policy-makers, health systems researchers, organisations serving older adults and older adults themselves by providing both academic publications and reports in plain languages,” concludes Dr. Pham.
The project is funded by the Pacific Institute on Funding Source Pathogens, Pandemics and the Canadian Institutes for Health Research.
