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B.C. groups invited to participate in seniors’ transportation study

Click to play video: 'Advocacy group researching seniors’ transportation in B.C.'
Advocacy group researching seniors’ transportation in B.C.
A national seniors’ advocacy group says transportation is often a major barrier for elderly people who don't drive making it harder for them to access programing and health care. That's why the organization is helping to collect more information on seniors transportation in Canada. As Megan Turcato reports, the research could help identify ways to improve the situation – Mar 9, 2022

CanAge, a national seniors advocacy group, says transportation is often a major barrier for elderly people who don’t drive, making it harder for them to access programs and health care.

That’s why the organization is helping to collect more information on the state of transportation for seniors in B.C. as part of a larger Canada-wide project.

“Transportation is one of the top five barriers for older people in social connection, as well as getting health and other types of supports they needed. In order to age in place we need to make sure that people are not isolated,” said CanAge president Laura Tamblyn Watts.

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“For people to be vibrant and engaged and live healthy lives, transportation has to be at the centre of that.”

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CanAge is asking B.C. community groups and municipalities to fill out an online survey to identify transportation challenges facing seniors and also share successes.

“We are trying to better understand how local community-based services, [it] could be van shares, could be ride shares, it could be interesting opportunities to engage in bikes,…are being used to help older people,” Tamblyn Watts said.
“We need to make sure that we are capturing those different strategies to make sure we can invest in them and not turn our eyes away from things that we know already [are] working.”

A final report based on the information submitted will be released in May.

Tamblyn Watts said that with philanthropic or government funding, the hope is that programs already working on a local level can be scaled up to help more seniors across Canada.

Anyone interested in contributing to the research can access the online form here.

Click to play video: 'Seniors facing severe isolation in long-term care homes'
Seniors facing severe isolation in long-term care homes

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