Aging in the time of COVID: Racism, Isolation, and Meaning

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Project Summary/Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic has illuminated and intensified the long-standing pandemic of systemic racism in the United States for older Black, Indigenous, and persons of color (BIPoC) and inadequate protections for frontline healthcare workers who serve older adults, many of them BIPoC themselves. Cases of COVID-19, hospitalizations and mortality are higher among BIPoC older adults and frontline healthcare workers compared to non-Hispanic White older adults and frontline healthcare workers. As an administrative supplement to an existing parent award (Advancing Diversity in Aging Research (ADAR) R25), the purpose of this research is to engage historically underrepresented undergraduate students in a research study aimed at understanding the experience of aging, isolation, racism and meaning for BIPoC older adults and frontline healthcare workers. As a project specific to bioethics research, this qualitative study uses Photovoice to study and visually portray the impact of racism, isolation and meaning on the lived experience of BIPoC adults over age 65 and BIPoC frontline healthcare workers who work with older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic. Undergraduate students (n=15) and BIPoC frontline health workers (n=15) will be recruited from St. Catherine University while older adults (n=30) will be recruited from local housing and independent living resources. Photovoice is a community-engaged participatory research approach in which participants photograph and reflect upon a particular community issue, engage in critical consciousness through large and small group conversations about the photographs, and disseminate the photographs in an exhibition to influence community leaders and inform social change.