There is a lack of research about older lesbians, who can be considered not only a "hidden population" but also a population in hiding. Yet older lesbians hold vital historical and cultural narratives that are, in turn, the heritage of younger lesbians. They also have much to contribute to understandings about gender, sexuality and aging, and to their currently unmet needs in terms of age-related housing, health, and social care provision. This article reflects on some of the issues that make it difficult to access older lesbians for research purposes. It identifies four problematic areas in researching older lesbians: definitions, access, representative sampling, and ethical issues. It suggests that participative action research might offer a means of widening access and engaging with older lesbians in a more collaborative way.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 2. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 16 July 2013.
All research outputs
#20,420,077
of 31,733,458 outputs
Outputs from Journal of Lesbian Studies
#306
of 491 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#143,087
of 227,181 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Journal of Lesbian Studies
#6
of 10 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 31,733,458 research outputs across all sources so far. This one is in the 34th percentile – i.e., 34% of other outputs scored the same or lower than it.
So far Altmetric has tracked 491 research outputs from this source. They typically receive more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 8.0. This one is in the 34th percentile – i.e., 34% of its peers scored the same or lower than it.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 227,181 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one is in the 36th percentile – i.e., 36% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
We're also able to compare this research output to 10 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has scored higher than 4 of them.
