A Scoping Review on Older Adults from Africa Social Connectedness Experiences in North America.

The percentage of older adult immigrants in Canada and the United States is increasing with older adult immigrants from Africa forming a small proportion of the population, but one of the fastest growing groups in the area. Depending on the circumstances leading to the move, migration can be very stressful, especially for older adults. The purpose of this scoping review is to summarize the evidence on the social connectedness of older African immigrants in Canada and the United States. The researchers searched databases including Cochrane Library, BMJ Online, CINAHL, Medline (Ovid), PsycInfo (Ovid), PsycArticles (Ovid), Web of Science, SpringerLINK, CBCA Canadian Business and Current Affairs Database, Academic Search Complete, Sage Journals Online, ABI/Inform, Emerald Fulltext, Expanded Academic ASAP, General OneFile, Joanna Briggs Institute EBP Database, Journals@Ovid, JSTOR, Oxford Journals Online, Taylor & Francis Journals, Wiley Online Library, ProQuest Dissertations and Thesis Global, and Google Scholar from 2000-2020. Four manuscripts met the search inclusion criteria of published peer-reviewed and unpublished research studies in the English language on aging, older adult, social connectedness, African immigrants, Canada, and the United States. The authors found limited studies on African older adult immigrants' social connectedness in Canada and the United States with dearth of research on the older adults' access to health care, use of smart technology and social media to promote their health and social connectedness which are gaps in the literature that should be researched in the future.