Posted by 摘要
本文探討了從農村老年學作為一個研究領域的演變中可以學到什麼，以便為農村老年人的健康提供更重要的方法。 為了對抗強調老年人面臨的農村健康差異的普遍本質主義，有必要將農村老年學健康研究擴展到農村社區對健康的赤字和醫學化理解之外。 我們認為，欣賞獨特的健康體驗、農村環境的複雜性和老年人照顧的連續性之間的相互作用是促進該領域進步的重要下一步。 討論了緊急問題的研究、政策和實踐，並提出了農村老年保健的新方向。
一、簡介
在世界各地，隨著不成比例的老年人在當地變老和/或遷移到非大都市（農村）環境（世衛組織，2015 年），農村老年人的健康、顧和福祉已成為研究、政策和政策的主要焦點。 21世紀的實踐。 這種興趣尤其體現在全球北方的高收入、地域廣闊的國家，這些國家面臨著為分散的農村老年人口提供優質護理的挑戰（即澳大利亞、加拿大、美國）（Keating 等人，2011 年；Davis 和 Bartlett， 2008 年；格拉斯哥和貝瑞，2013 年）。 儘管幾十年的學術研究都強調農村老年人面臨的健康差異（例如，Gesler 等人，1998 年），但仍然需要更好地理解農村健康研究中相互關聯但截然不同的領域之間的關係（例如，Hanlon 和 Kearns，2016 年）和農村老年學（例如，Scharf 等人，2016 年），它們都為當前關於農村老年人健康的學術研究提供了信息。 為此，本文探討了從農村老年學日益關鍵的轉變中可以學到什麼，以提供一種更全面的方法來理解“農村老年學健康”。 本文首先回顧了農村老年學的主要發展，包括更普遍地引入社會老年學中正在進行的批判性、空間性和全球性轉變。 然後，文章檢查了農村衛生文獻中老齡化知識的差距，特別注意強調農村老年人健康缺乏和醫學化理解的普遍性和局限性。 本文最後討論了研究、政策和實踐中出現的新問題，以及農村老年健康作為一個研究領域的潛在方向。
關鍵詞：農村老年學，農村衛生，老年人健康
原文
Rural gerontological health: Emergent questions for research, policy and practice
Abstract
This article explores what can be learned from the evolution of rural gerontology as a field of study to inform a more critical approach to the health of rural older adults. To counter the prevailing essentialism of highlighting the rural health disparities faced by older adults, there is a need to expand rural gerontological health research beyond deficit and medicalized understandings of health in rural communities. We argue that appreciating the interplay between unique health experiences, the complexity of the rural context and the continuum of older adult care is an important next step to foster advances in the field. Emergent questions research, policy and practice are discussed and new directions for rural gerontological health are proposed.
- Introduction
Around the world, as a disproportionate number of older adults age in place and/or migrate to non-metropolitan (rural) environments (WHO, 2015), rural older adult health, care and wellbeing have emerged as major foci of research, policy and practice in the 21st century. Such interest is the case especially in high income geographically expansive countries of the Global North that face the challenge of providing quality care for dispersed older rural populations (i.e., Australia, Canada, USA) (Keating et al., 2011; Davis and Bartlett, 2008; Glasgow and Berry, 2013). Notwithstanding decades of scholarship that emphasizes the health disparities faced by rural older adults (e.g., Gesler et al., 1998), there is still a need to better understand the relationship between the interconnected yet surprisingly disparate fields of rural health studies (e.g., Hanlon and Kearns, 2016) and rural gerontology (e.g., Scharf et al., 2016) that each inform current scholarship on rural older adult health. Towards this end, this article explores what can be learned from an increasingly critical turn in rural gerontology to inform a more holistic approach to understanding ‘rural gerontological health’. The article begins by reviewing the key developments in rural gerontology, including the import of critical, spatial and global turns underway in social gerontology more generally. The article then examines the gaps in knowledge on aging within the rural health literature, with particular attention to highlighting the prevalence and limitations of deficit and medicalized understandings of rural older adult health. The article concludes with a discussion of emergent questions for research, policy and practice, and potential directions for rural gerontological health as a field of study.
Keywords: Rural gerontology, Rural health, Older adult health