Frailism: a scoping review exploring discrimination against people living with frailty
No Thumbnail Available
Authors
Walker, Richard
Issue Date
2025
Type
Article
Language
en
Keywords
Alternative Title
Abstract
Summary: People living with frailty can experience discrimination, but unlike the characteristics of age and disability, frailty is not protected by law. Frailty is a clinical syndrome associated with ageing in which health deficits increase a person’s vulnerability to illness, disability, and death. This scoping review, conducted by a team of methodologists, clinicians, lawyers, and patients, aimed to investigate the extent of discrimination against people living with frailty described in health-care literature. We searched five health-care databases from inception up to June, 2022, and grey literature, to identify 144 texts. The texts were classified by the types of discrimination (direct discrimination, indirect discrimination, harassment, and victimisation) and inductively developed into contextual themes. The median age of the participants was 77 years (IQR 69·9–82·0), and 65·4% were women. The most common types of discrimination were direct (in 90 [63%]), indirect (in 66 [46%]), and harassment (in one [1%]) of the 144 texts, with no instances of victimisation reported. Nine themes of discriminatory actions were developed. Discrimination against people living with frailty overlapped with discrimination based on established protected characteristics, including age, disability, race, and sex. Evidence indicated that frailty discrimination replaces, mediates, masks, and potentiates age discrimination. Discrimination against people with frailty seemed to be both an independent event and one that interacts with established protected characteristics. Future research should focus on preventing frailty-based discrimination and establishing whether frailty should be considered a new protected characteristic by law.
Description
Citation
Braude, P., Lewis, E. G. Broach, S. et al. (2025) 'Frailism: a scoping review exploring discrimination against people living with frailty', The Lancet Healthy Longevity, 6(1), 100651
Publisher
License
Journal
The Lancet Health Longevity
The Lancet Healthy Longevity
The Lancet Healthy Longevity
Volume
Issue
PubMed ID
ISSN
2666-7568