It’s about who they are and what they can do: Māori perspectives on frailty in later life | OPEN ACCESS
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There are pervasive health disparities between Māori and non-Māori in Aotearoa New Zealand, and frailty is no exception. Māori experience frailty more often and at a younger age than non-Māori New Zealanders,[[1,2]] with Māori aged 65–70 years being as likely to be frail as non-Māori in their early 80s.[[3]]
There is general agreement that frailty represents an elevated state of risk or vulnerability to a sudden decline in health and other negative outcomes.[[4,5]] There is less agreement about the operationalisation and assessment of frailty. One approach views frailty as a physical syndrome with an underlying biological cause,[[6]] while an alternative approach views frailty as an accumulation of medical deficits.[[7]] Moreover, there have been calls for a more holistic approach to frailty to better inform personalised care and management plans that integrate older individuals’ views and goals.[[8,9]] However, research to understand views on frailty has generally been limited to Western cultures and has not interfaced with the Māori worldview (te ao Māori).