Identifying challenges and recommendations for conducting health research with older adults: a qualitative investigation

This paper presents a qualitative research study that sought to understand the main challenges researchers face when attempting to conduct health research specifically with older adults and recommends strategies to assist with mitigating and managing these challenges. High quality research is important to inform public health policy and practice to improve and support the health, wellbeing, and quality of life for older adults. However, the challenges faced by researchers working in this space make it difficult to successfully complete a study, or to obtain meaningful findings. Currently, there is a gap in the literature with no studies yet to comprehensively investigate the challenges encountered when conducting health research with older adults across the entirety of the research process, nor to make explicit recommendations for how to conduct high-quality research with this population group. Without this understanding, and without recommendations to guide researchers in this space, we continue to run the risk of limiting the success of studies aiming to improve the health and quality of life of older adults through public health policy or practice.