Promoting a healthy and inclusive ageing in Arctic people and communities.

The Arctic Five was represented all over Bodø at the Arctic Congress 2024. Among them were the Arctic Five Fellows Magnus Zingmark from Umeå University, and Shahnaj Begum from the University of Lapland. They were both having sessions on the topic “Promoting a healthy and inclusive ageing in Arctic people and communities.”

Shahnaj Begum is a PhD at the University of Lapland, and an Arcic Five Fellow. She presented her analysis of older people in the Finnish North, and their thoughts on age-friendly environments. With interviews, she asked 15 respondents which particular elements of an age-friendly environment are of importance in the daily life, and which challenges can create distances, and if they differ depending on background. The respondents were elder people who where native Finns, immigrants, or Sámi. In the results, Begum found that there were both positive and negative distances in both the social and natural environments. For example, positive distances could be long distances to dangerous crowds and short distances to nature, whereas negative distances were more socially bound, where long distances tended to affect the social life and cause feelings of detachment to the community or close friends.

Shahnaj Begum thinks her research will benefit future elderly healthcare.
“I think I can bring more clarity in what challenges elder people are facing and how it is affecting their physical and mental health,” she says.

Magnus Zingmark is an Associated Professor at Umeå University, and an Arctic Five Fellow. In his presentation “Utilization of research for active and healthy ageing: Implementation of web-based house councelling in Swedish municipalities”, he presented his project RELOC-AGE where they are developing the web-based house counselling program “Ageing in the Right Place” (ARP) which will help and counsel older people who want to have a future in their own household. The web-based service has been tested in two Swedish municipalities and has received positive response from both elders and the municipalities.

These results are all steps on the road towards understanding and developing a sustainable and secure life with high quality and standard for older people. When asked about the key issues in this research field, Magnus Zingmark thinks we have to radically change the ways we conduct our healthcare, and preventive healthcare, because resources like staff will not suffice. He says that we must use the evidence we have, strengthen the competence development, and benefit from the mixture of traditional interventions and digital formats.

“What also becomes clear at a conference like this, is to really understand all the different perspectives, such as rural and urban, indigenous perspectives, and so on. It is important to have those in mind, because at the end of the day, it is all about an equality perspective,” Zingmark concludes.