2021-02-28 Meeting

An afternoon session talking about the epidemic of studies, surveys, interviews, and focus groups we the elder Q community is being subjected to.

The discussion was suggested by Q researcher Dr Jacqueline Gahagan. We were joined by professional health researcher Dr Larry Mróz from Vancouver.

Elderberries members: Anita, Barend, Carolyn, Dan (notes) Lynn, Norval, Pauline and Norval.

Here are the two problems we’re faced with:

Problem 1: This is a huge time commitment: we could easily spend an hour a day, every day, participating in these.

Problem 2: case study:

• An undergrad student decides to (or is required to - e.g. all 125 medical students at the Dal School of Medicine are required to) do a research study for her term project. She picks “Determinants of 2SLGBTQ+ Seniors' Healthcare Outcomes” as her topic and makes up ten very reasonable questions.
• She asks the Elderberries if they will participate; the Board says sure, we’re all about the advancement of science and helping students.
• On Tuesday, we distribute the survey to our six-hundred-odd members and ten or twenty dutifully fill them out.
• We never hear from her again.
• On Thursday, Health Canada releases their official 2021 Q Elders Healthcare survey, which they’ve been developing for the last three years. Not surprisingly it has almost all the same questions as the undergrad student’s.
• Our members say, “I just did this survey two days ago” and hit delete.
• So Health Canada either gets no information from Atlantic Canada, or
• As Dr Gahagan said, "... learns that the Elder Q community in Atlantic Canada consists of just two lesbians, their outcomes are perfect, and there are no unmet needs."

We talked about this all afternoon.

Dr Mróz pointed out that it’s not just us; he works with indigenous groups who are being vastly overstudied as well and have precisely the same issues.

Our conclusions:

Recommendations: what we can do:

1. We require every research request to be accompanied by a couple of paragraphs in lay language explaining “How will this study improve the lives of my group?” If they can’t write this, we can’t do the study; for students this can be a self-introduction.
2. We require every research request to produce, at the end, a report readable by the lay public, of 500-800 words of the results, perhaps less for students. If they can’t do this, we can’t do the study.
3. If possible, we be involved in the design of the study so the right questions are being asked.
4. That we engage with national Q organizations such as EGALE, the LGBT Research Secretariat and Enchanté. We didn’t talk about exactly how we’d do this.
5. We Q Elders have an Advisory Group which handles incoming requests for studies, surveys, interviews, and focus groups (it’s unlikely that the Elderberries will do this, though, we don’t have enough spare volunteer energy.)

Non recommendations: what we can’t do:

1. We can not refuse to do studies on our population. Dr Gahagan said, "The research train has left the station and the Elderberries can either be driving the train from the pink engine... or be towed along in the lavender caboose.”
2. Just to reiterate: we have to bite the bullet and do this work. We can’t refuse to do studies from undergrads, because that stifles their interest in our population, and if everyone did it, would prevent them from graduating.
3. We can’t create a standard answers bank. No researcher in the world would use such a thing.
4. We very often can’t interact with the questions, because either they’ve spent a very long time getting ethics approval, or because they’re a part of a standard e.g. international research instrument.