Page 25 - OCF Oxfordshire Uncovered

“Loneliness is now recognised as an additional risk to health in old age.”
Dr Jonathan McWilliam, Director of Public Health for Oxfordshire
COMMUNITY SOLUTIONS
Dance to Health
The Dance to Health project runs intensive, age-appropriate dance classes for older people to improve strength, stamina and balance, thereby preventing the falls and accidents that can set an older person back.
Dance to Health is so successful because it ‘smuggles’ physiotherapy routines into a fun, sociable and ongoing activity for older people, focusing both on immediate improvement
and ongoing maintenance of stability. Oxfordshire Community Foundation has helped establish the national pilot by supporting classes at the Health and Wellbeing Centre in Abingdon, with other sessions happening in Banbury.
Loneliness and isolation
The prevention of loneliness in the elderly population is not strictly the responsibility of the state, and has generally fallen on the community. Over recent years we have seen our communities change, especially in rural locations. Many villages and towns in Oxfordshire have become ‘dormitory towns’, where a high proportion of the population, due to escalated urban house prices, commute from their homes on a daily basis. Village halls, community centres, sports clubs and pubs have closed down, or are not open during the daytime.
Nonetheless, charities and community groups are still integral to supporting the elderly and combating loneliness, as well as building social cohesion and community spirit. In Oxfordshire, these are
very diverse – ranging from lunch and activity clubs, to classes and befriending services – but provision can be patchy or fragmented, depending largely on the initiative and goodwill of individual community members. These initiatives need the encouragement and support of local funders if they are to equip themselves to combat the serious fall-out of loneliness amongst the elderly.
VULNERABLE MINORITIES
Ethnic minorities
The ethnic diversity of the population in Oxfordshire varies dramatically from district to district. Oxford city’s population is 35% minority ethnic, but Oxfordshire as a whole is only 16%.
Ethnic minorities – those who identify as anything other than “White British or Irish” on the census – may feel segregated from the majority population, and are at risk of feeling isolated and lonely. Ethnic minorities may suffer higher rates of loneliness, with loneliness rates of up to 50% reported in some studies.
Given that around two-thirds of population growth in the county is due to inward migration from other countries, the ethnic minority population is likely to grow. This would suggest that nurturing community support that helps them directly would be a useful investment in the future.
Some of this immigration consists of students coming to Oxford University and Oxford Brookes, particularly from nations such as the USA and China. While international students and those from countries that have established communities in Oxford will not be immune to loneliness, they will be at lower risk.
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