Researchers at the International Executive School (IES) have joined forces with colleagues at the University of the West Indies and Sharda University to publish a new study on aging in the Caribbean, one that challenges long-held assumptions about what it means to grow old well.
The study focuses on Indo-Caribbean communities in Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago, a population that has been largely absent from ageing research despite its significant presence in both countries. Drawing on conversations with older adults across both nations, the research team asked a simple but powerful question: What does positive aging actually look like here, in these communities, on their own terms?
The answers were striking. For Indo-Caribbean elders, aging well had little to do with personal independence. It was about what was remaining needed. Participants described finding purpose and dignity in continuing to contribute to their families through practical support, guidance, and presence, including across transnational networks spanning the Caribbean and its diaspora.
Faith and culture were equally central. Religious practice, cooking traditional foods, and passing down ancestral stories were understood not as personal habits but as a form of duty, a way of keeping something alive for future generations.
Participants also spoke of traditional health knowledge, including bush medicine, herbal remedies, and food-as-medicine practices, which they held alongside formal medical care rather than in opposition to it.
This collaboration between IES, the University of the West Indies, and Sharda University reflects a shared commitment to research that listens to communities whose voices are rarely heard in mainstream scholarship. The findings carry direct implications for healthcare professionals, community programmes, and policymakers working with Indo-Caribbean older adults across Caribbean and diaspora contexts.