Study: Seniors facing stay-home challenges
Challenges associated with food availability are causing Pennsylvania adults over the age of 60 to leave their homes more often than anticipated during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Such was the leading takeaway last week from a 32-page report on a survey of older Pennsylvanians released from the Pennsylvania Council on Aging, according to Robert Torres, secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Aging.
For that, Torres stressed during a video press conference, the state will do what it can to help reverse that trend, including encouraging grocery stores to better assist older adults in curbside orders and home-delivery effectiveness.
“With some of the concerns that were raised about food access, I was surprised that older adults are going out more than I expected,” said Torres, when asked about the most unexpected result of the study. “However with the shift to seniors not being able to go to senior centers or adult day centers, there’s a lot of pressure being put on to make sure food is being made available to the seniors.
“I think the pressure being put on the supply chain as far as delivery and not having enough inventory is obviously pushing the seniors to go out.”
The statewide online review was completed in one week by the Council on Aging and received 3,776 responses from older adults. The findings broken into three categories, reflecting the replies of citizens aged 60 to 70, 71 to 90 and 91 and older. With the
U.S. Centers for Disease Control reporting that 80 percent of coronavirus-connected deaths in the United States have been of adults 65 or older, the study sought findings specific to Pennsylvania.
The survey was distributed through an internet link to contacts of the Council on Aging, in both English and Spanish. Among those included in the study, the council said, were communitybased organizations serving older Latino, African-American and LGBTQ adults. Of the responses, 3,692 were deemed suitable. The surveys were meant to identify how older adults are interacting in their communities during the pandemic, included 14 questions and took approximately five minutes to complete.
While a statewide stay-at-home order was issued on April 1, the study found, among other things, that Pennsylvania’s older adults are visiting grocery stores nearly twice a week and that they are going to pharmacies in “high numbers.” Family and religious interests have also driven older adults to leave their homes during the emergency.
Older Pennsylvanians, the study showed, were also the most likely to visit post offices and banks and less likely to have their groceries delivered. They are also more inclined to feel the effects of social isolation.
“One of the comments that we saw frequently in the survey was that they’re not getting their orders completely filled and delivery times were long,” Torres said. “It’s an opportunity to see who we can work with to see if there are opportunities to change some of the current procedures. In terms of social isolation, there’s a lot of interest on that topic. We are working with universities that have expressed interest in working with the department to work with older adults on the issue.”
To reduce that isolation, particularly among nursing-home residents, Torres said his department has a “partnership” with the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) to provide more devices to patients to maintain better contact with family members. According to Torres, the AARP has “hundreds of volunteers” prepared to assist in that effort.
From the study, the Department of Aging recommended that grocery stores prioritize delivery or curbside pickup for older adults. Also, it encouraged stores to offer specific hours for seniors to shop on Sundays, the day they are most likely to leave their homes.
“We really hope these findings will lead to good decision-making and policies and procedures moving forward,” said Faith Haussler, the executive director of the Council on Aging, during the cyberbriefing. “We wanted to be sure we were capturing real-time information from older adults.”
The full “State of Older Adults COVID-19 Report,” can be accessed at the Department of Aging’s website, www.aging.pa.gov. Choose the “Organizations” option, then select the “Council on Aging” category.
“The (Tom) Wolf administration and the Department of Aging are keenly aware that food access, community connections and social isolation have and will continue to be issues affecting older adults’ well-being and quality of life,” said Torres, in a statement announcing the study results. “The responses drawn by this survey, in real time during this pandemic, present an opportunity for us to deepen our collective understanding of these major issues and engage with partners to develop thoughtful, creative and effective solutions.”