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Critical gaps exist in effective services. They must support home-based care that meets rural and remote older adults' needs.
Access, resource limitations, and workforce constraints challenge effective care.
Designing services with communities ensures older adults receive care that fits their context. Program co-design supports local innovation and sustainability.
A strengths-based approach involves working with local communities and healthcare providers. It supports the idea that "those who own the program will grow the program."
The Aged Care in Rural Areas (ACRA) research team came together in 2021.
We have an interest in improving care for older people in rural areas. We were asked to contribute to a review (Storuman Cares) of aged care services in the Storuman Municipality in northern Sweden:
The team has also started to develop an evaluation framework. It uses data from home care providers. The framework assesses the value of service innovations to improve client outcomes and cut service costs.
We have showcased our work to academics and practitioners in rural and regional Queensland and New South Wales through links with CQU’s Health Workforce Academy and the Manna Institute. This has led to the enthusiasm of stakeholders in the Central Highlands region (Queensland) to support our internal research grant.
We are also engaged in an international grant, The CREATE Project. With partners in Canada and the USA we are exploring: How can those who undertake research, across various disciplines and settings, become more connected and accountable to those they are obligated to serve? How can we pursue the goal of health equity through the formation of research practices and networks where social accountability is a core value?
We are conducting research on home-based care for older adults in rural and remote Queensland. We want to understand the current issues. We also want to understand the opportunities for innovation in aged care. This includes home and community care in the Central Highlands.
SAR-CREATE at CQUniversity, Australia
Our team is proud to be part of the Community-engaged Research in Education, Advocacy, & System Transformation for Equity (CREATE): Exploring the Transformative Potential of Socially Accountable Research Networks Locally and Globally project, led by the Northern Ontario School of Medicine with sites in Canada and the USA. Our site’s overall aim is to explore how Socially Accountable Research (SAR) can inform and facilitate the design of sustainable, community-responsive services for older adults. Our research is underpinned by a social justice perspective and utilises a Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) and co-design approach. It incorporates embedded case studies of community-based research projects with older people Central Highlands region of Queensland.
Research methods include:
Data analysis will involve:
Key Partners and Stakeholders:
See: The CREATE Project
Animals in Australian Residential Aged Care Facilities: Provision, Policy, and Practice. In her PhD research, ACRA researcher Dr Wendy Newton found that there were few guidelines for including animals in Australian Residential Aged Care Facilities (RACFs), which, with the changes in the New Aged Care Bill 2024, could be problematic for RACFs that are now obligated to provide residents who want animal contact with access to pets or other animals. Some of her research also suggested there could be differences between how metropolitan and regional/rural areas include animals (an area she would like to explore further). Ultimately, she found that there is a need to explore ways to include animals in RACFs that are sustainable by being safe and fun for people and animals. In addition to her thesis, she produced five co-authored papers with her supervisors, Professors Jenni Judd and Tania Signal. Dr Newton hopes to undertake further research exploring the human-animal bond and its relationship to health and wellness.
With spring 2024 almost upon us we thought should update our progress.
Robyn was in Queensland’s Central Highlands completing face to face interviews with health and social services stakeholders in June. Wendy completed some additional interviews online in August. The ACRA team have now completed the initial coding of these interviews, and we are excited to share some preliminary findings.
Robyn and Wendy plan to return to the Central Highlands in October 2024 for action-oriented discussions with residents who are aged over 55 to develop ‘one achievable thing’ for the community. These focus groups/workshops are in the planning stage now and we will keep you posted on our October visit.
Please email [email protected] We are excited to have an opportunity to work with you.
Focus groups identify how Central Highland communities can be better places to age.
A total of 26 Central Highlands residents aged over 55 participated in four workshops held in Capella, Emerald and Sapphire from 22 to 24 October 2024.
Participants were asked to identify what would make their community a better place to age.
The main themes from the focus groups were:
Systemic and Structural Challenges
Workforce and Service Delivery Gaps
Inequitable and Ineffective Service Models
Social and Health-Related Issues
Self-Advocacy and Local Initiatives
Innovative Models of Care
Local Government and Community Development
Community-Initiated Advocacy
Contacts:
Additional Resources: Aged Care in Rural Areas - CQUniversity
Storumans Kommun in northern Sweden is a challenging environment in which to provide elder care. More than 15% of the population is aged 70 years or older. Over 40% live in small villages that can be very distant from health and care services. Overall health for older people is improving, but health needs are increasingly complex. This includes increased cases of dementia and other mental illnesses, chronic illness and multiple co-morbidities that mean a demand for care services even when people are able to mostly live independently. The Kommun provides both in-home care and public housing, but always finds it difficult to recruit and retain care workers. Current models of care are very expensive, and there is a need to find new models.
In addition to a final options paper, the project produces regular briefing notes for the Kommun and its residents.
For more information contact [email protected].
Public Seminar: Forget about it! Time for ‘new’ thinking about aged care in rural areas
22 April 2024.
CQUniversity Emerald Campus
Presented by:
Professor Dean Carson, from Umeå University, shared his experience. He worked with rural Swedish municipalities to develop new aged care models. He outlined how challenges in rural Queensland were similar to those in remote Sweden.
Presentations (PowerPoint Pdf):
Media article: Don't forget about aged care - Central Queensland Today
Dr Robyn Preston (CQUniversity) is a social scientist and public health researcher. She has an interest in health and community workforce issues in remote and rural communities and developing innovative models of care through health and community partnerships.
Dr Geraldine Vaughan brings her women's and public health backgrounds to the Storuman team, with an interest in how ageing services can be improved in remote and regional areas with a focus on women's needs.
Dr Ashlyn Sahay is Senior Lecturer, Nursing and Midwifery and has an interest in developing the health workforce and service delivery models particularly in the rural and regional areas.
Dean is a human geographer with an interest in who lives in, who works in, and who visits small rural areas. He is the project leader for the Storuman Cares initiative in Sweden that is looking at innovative ways to improve aged care services in the sparsely populated north of the country.
Dr Anne-Marie Holt is a public health scientist with a strong interest in gerontology, healthy ageing and workforce preparedness for the ageing population. Her current focus is on workforce issues and encouraging university graduates to value opportunities to work with older people across all health domains in their future career path.
Dr Wendy Newton has been a registered nurse for nearly 40 years and she is a certified behavioural dog trainer. Her PhD combined both those skills and was completed in 2024, with a thesis titled Animals in Australian Residential Aged Care Facilities: Provision, Policy, and Practice. Working with the ACRA team while completing her PhD provided her with additional research skills and insight into working in rural areas. Wendy is keen to continue working with the ACRA team and the communities in the Central Highlands. She also hopes to undertake further research exploring the human-animal bond and its relationship to health and wellness. Wendy also enjoys supporting research higher degree students as they navigate their degrees.
We have introduced the network and the Storuman Model internationally:
Carson, D. B., Brunet Johansson, A., & Carson, D. A. (2024). Who Gives? Non-Commercial Distribution Networks in Domestic Food Production in the Inland North of Sweden. Sustainability, 16(6), 2300. https://doi.org/10.3390/su16062300
Carson, D. B., Carson, D. A., Lundmark, L., & Hurtig, A. K. (2022b). Resource deserts, village hierarchies and de-growth in sparsely populated areas: the case of Southern Lapland, Sweden. Fennia, 200(2), 210-227. https://doi.org/10.11143/fennia.120788
Carson, D. B., Johansson, A. B., Schaumberg, M., & Hurtig, A. K. (2024). Addressing the workforce crisis in (rural) social care: A scoping review. The International Journal of Health Planning and Management. https://doi.org/10.1002/hpm.3774
Carson, D. B., Messmer, R., & Leuf Fjällberg, E. (2024). Creating’good’hospital to home transfers in the rural north of Sweden: informal workarounds and opportunities for improvement. Home Health Care Services Quarterly, 43(1), 18-38. https://doi.org/10.3389/phrs.2022.1604921
Carson, D., Preston, R., & Hurtig, A. K. (2022). Innovation in rural health services requires local actors and local action. Public Health Reviews, 43. https://doi.org/10.3389/phrs.2022.1604921
Petrie, S., Carson, D., Hurtig, A. K., Simpson, H., Young, M., Hodge, H., & Gladman, J. (2021). What a pandemic has taught us about the potential for innovation in rural health: Commencing an ethnography in Canada, the United States, Sweden, and Australia. Frontiers in Public Health, 9. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2021.768624
Petrie, S., Peters, P., & Carson, D. (2019). Antifragile by design: using antifragility as a guiding principle in future rural eHealth implementation & evaluation. Health Science Inquiry, 10(1). https://doi.org/10.29173/hsi21
Vaughan, G., Carson, D. B., Preston, R., Mude, W., & Holt, A. M. (2022). A “toolkit” for rural aged care? Global insights from a scoping review. Frontiers in Political Science, 4. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpos.2022.885636
ACRA are keen to explore collaboration opportunities with local, national and international organisations.
CQUniversity acknowledges Traditional Owners and Custodians and pays respect to the Elders of all First Nations peoples of Australia.CQUniversity Australia is a trading name of Central Queensland University
ABN: 39 181 103 288
RTO Code: 40939
CRICOS: 00219C
TEQSA: PRV12073
