Executive Summary
One hundred twenty-five (125) oof 167 participants who opened the live survey at the Susumber Health Foundation’s 11th Biennial Diaspora Health Conference completed it in full (75% completion rate), as recorded in the dashboard export dated 9 August 2026. This updated report supersedes the earlier 102-response analysis (itself an update of the 61-response and original 25-response passes). The dataset has now grown from 102 to 125 verified completed responses — a 23% increase — and continues to confirm every headline finding from the prior passes, with several patterns strengthening further and a small number shifting in ways worth flagging.
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The results describe a respondent base that remains predominantly female, concentrated in the 50–70 age band, and long-settled in Jamaica, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada, converging decisively on a single overriding concern: healthcare access.
This update also refreshes the estimated geographic breakdown of the diaspora respondent base — by USA, Canada, UK, and Jamaica — modelled from indirect signals in the data, and adds a new section (Section 5) comparing this wave against the 102-response and 61-response datasets to identify which questions, if any, are producing significantly different answers as the base has grown.
Four findings stand out as decision-grade — supported by strong majorities across independent questions, and stable across the last two waves:
• Healthcare access dominates every relevant question. It was the #1-ranked retirement concern for 81 of 115 respondents who answered (70%) — statistically unchanged from the 102-response wave (71%) — and led the weighted score by the widest margin of any concern.
• Retirement Villages with Urgent Care remains the most-supported commercial concept, selected by 65 of 125 respondents (52%), with Private Medical Insurance close behind at 63 (50%) and the Outpatient Emergency Centres Network at 54 (43%) — the same top three, in the same order, as the 102-response wave.
• Engagement intent, once a data-collection artifact is corrected for (see Section 5), sits at 62% — a partial recovery from the 47% recorded in the 102-response wave, though still below the 72% recorded at 61 responses.
• The respondent base remains genuinely pan-diasporic, though the mix has shifted: modelled estimates now show 52 respondents (42%) USA-based, 26 (21%) UK-based, 21 (17%) Canada-based, and 20 (16%) Jamaica-based, with 6 (5%) unclear. The USA share has grown materially since the 102-response wave (33%→42%); see Section 5 for discussion.
A Note on Data Quality
The host dashboard is the definitive record of survey activity. The CSV export used as the source for this analysis includes 167 total entries; the 125 marked as Completed are the basis for this report. All figures are based on these 125 verified completed responses unless otherwise noted.
The 42 participants who did not complete the survey are not properly characterised as dropouts. Several may have encountered connectivity interruptions mid-session, stepped away before the final question, or been part of continued post-conference distribution to the Foundation’s wider diaspora list. None of this represents a survey refusal.
Not every respondent answered every question; percentages are calculated against the full 125-respondent base unless a question’s answered total is explicitly noted, and this is flagged where the gap is material.
A data-collection issue affecting the opt-in question (Q16) was identified and corrected in this pass — see Section 5 for full detail. In short: for 46 of the 125 respondents, Q16 was populated by a different question (financial
institutions used) rather than the opt-in question, with the true opt-in answer appearing instead in Q18. Reading Q16 alone, as prior passes did, understates the true opt-in rate. This report reconciles both columns to recover the correct answer for every respondent.
A Note on Methodology — Estimated Country of Residence
The survey did not ask respondents directly which country they currently live in. As in the prior update, we produced a modelled estimate using four indirect signals already present in the dataset:
• Insurance type claimed (Q14) — NHS points to the UK, OHIP to Canada, Medicare/Social Security to the USA, and NHF to Jamaica.
• Pension currency, where a pension was reported (Q15b) — GBP, CAD, USD, or JMD.
• Phone number formatting — the 876 country code is distinctive for Jamaica and UK mobile formats are distinctive for the UK; plain North American numbers are treated as USA/Canada without a further split, since format alone cannot reliably separate the two.
• Email domain, where available — for example .co.uk or .ca addresses.
Where these signals conflicted or were entirely absent (40 of 125 respondents before fallback), a secondary signal — self-reported years of residence per country (Q4) — was used to assign the country of longest tenure. Only 6 respondents remain genuinely unclear after this fallback. This is a directional estimate, not a direct survey answer, and should be treated accordingly — particularly the USA figure, which is the most likely to include some Canada-based respondents given the shared phone numbering plan.
1. Who Responded
The 125 completed respondents skew female, older, and long-settled in the diaspora — consistent with a conference audience built around legacy Jamaican-American, Jamaican-Canadian, and Jamaican-British community ties, now broadened further by continued post-conference distribution to the Foundation’s wider diaspora contact list.
Gender and Age
Gender Count Share
Table 1. Gender distribution (n=125).
Age Band Count Share
Table 2. Age distribution (n=125). Seventy-one percent of respondents (89 of 125) are age 50 or older — the population for whom retirement and aging-related healthcare access is most immediate, and a continuation of the steady rise seen across every wave (56%→61%→69%→71%).
Diaspora Tenure
Residency patterns confirm a deeply rooted, long-tenured diaspora. Forty-two respondents reported more than 20 years living in the USA — now the largest single tenure category — with 37 reporting more than 20 years in Jamaica, 25 in the UK, and 20 in Canada, reflecting genuine multi-country migration histories across all three major diaspora markets.
Geographically, responses were spread across 13 of Jamaica’s 14 parishes (of 118 respondents who stated one). Kingston led with 25 responses (21%), followed by Saint Ann at 19 (16%) and Portland at 16 (14%) — Saint Ann has overtaken Portland for second place since the 102-response wave. This spread reflects both the conference venue (Montego Bay, Saint James) and the Kingston base of many attendees.
Estimated Country of Residence
Using the insurance-type, pension-currency, phone/email, and tenure-fallback signals described above, we estimate the following country breakdown for the 125 completed responses. This is a modelled estimate rather than a direct survey question — see the Methodology note above.
Estimated Country Count Share
Table 3. Estimated country of current residence (n=125), modelled from insurance type, pension currency, phone/email formatting, and tenure fallback. Directional, not a direct survey response.
The estimate continues to confirm a genuinely pan-diasporic base rather than one dominated by a single market, though the mix has shifted meaningfully since the 102-response wave: the USA share has grown from 33% to 42%, while the UK share has fallen from 26% to 21%. Canada (17%, down slightly from 19%) and Jamaica (16%, down slightly from 17%) are essentially stable. See Section 5 for discussion of whether this reflects a genuine shift in the respondent population or a change in distribution channel.
Education Profile
Highest Qualification Count Share
Table 4. Education distribution (n=125). Eighty-two percent hold a post-secondary qualification, consistent with a conference rather than general-population sample.
Engagement Profile
Conference attendance history shows a shift toward first-time respondents as the dataset has grown. Forty respondents (32%) were attending for the first time — up from 23% in the 102-response wave — while 52 (42%) were attending their second Biennial Conference, 13 (10%) their third, 4 (3%) their fourth, 4 (3%) their fifth, and 3 (2%) more than five times (7% did not state). This shift is discussed further in Section 5; it most likely reflects continued post-conference distribution reaching first-time respondents rather than a change in the conference attending population itself.
Once the Q16/Q18 data-collection issue described above is corrected, 77 of 124 respondents who answered (62%) opted in to receive the results, and 65 of 125 (52%) chose to share their name and contact details rather than respond anonymously.
2. Retirement Concerns and Health Priorities
Respondents ranked their top five concerns about retiring in or returning to Jamaica. Healthcare access was the runaway #1 choice, selected first by 81 of 115 respondents who answered (70%) — more than four and a half times the share of the next-ranked concern, Crime and its effects (15%).
Table 5. Retirement concerns — first choice and weighted score (n=115 who ranked at least one concern). Weighted score: rank 1 = 5 points through rank 5 = 1 point, summed across respondents.
Weighted across all ranked choices, healthcare access leads with a score of 500 — well ahead of crime (337), ability to pay (235), housing (191), and employment (136). Note one small reordering versus the 102-response wave: Ability to pay for needs now edges ahead of Housing or residence in the weighted ranking, despite Housing drawing more first-choice votes (10 vs 4) — in the prior wave the first-choice and weighted rankings were identical throughout. This is discussed in Section 5.
Where the Foundation Should Focus Research (Q9)
A second, independently-asked question reinforces the same theme. Across 116 respondents, Dementia and Aging remains the most frequently mentioned condition (78 mentions) and leads decisively on both weighted score (295) and first-choice count (38, 33%). Diabetes follows closely (70 mentions, weighted score 240) — the same top two, in the same order, as every prior wave.
Medical Tourism
Table 6. Research focus priorities, all 11 conditions shown (n=116). Weighted score: rank 1 = 5 points through rank 5 = 1 point, summed across respondents.
Taken together, Tables 5 and 6 tell a consistent story: this audience is most concerned about the everyday chronic and age-related
conditions — dementia, diabetes, hypertension, heart disease — that determine whether retirement in Jamaica is medically viable day to day, alongside cancer screening across multiple tumour types. One notable reordering: Heart Disease has overtaken Hypertension in the weighted ranking (143 vs 138), reversing their order in the 102-response wave (103 vs 113) — a modest shift within an otherwise stable middle tier, discussed further in Section 5.
3. Commercial Initiative Interest
Respondents selected which of 11 proposed Foundation initiatives interested them (multi-select, unlimited choices). Figures reflect breadth of interest across the audience, not ranked priority.
Table 7. Commercial initiative selections, all 11 initiatives shown (n=125, multi-select).
The case for prioritising Retirement Villages with Urgent Care remains unusually well-triangulated: it is the top commercial initiative by selection count, it directly answers the #1-ranked retirement concern, and it serves the 71% of respondents aged 50 or above. The top three initiatives, and their order, are unchanged from the 102- response wave; overall selection shares softened by 2–3 points across most initiatives, consistent with a broader base rather than any specific loss of enthusiasm.
4. Financial Profile
Pension Coverage
Ninety-five of 116 respondents who answered (82%) report having a pension or other retirement plan, 10 (9%) do not, and 11 (9%) are unsure or still planning — essentially unchanged from the 102-response wave (81%). Among those with a pension, 56 (59%) disclosed a currency: 32 hold USD-denominated pensions, 14 GBP, and 10 CAD — a currency split that lines up closely with the estimated USA/UK/Canada country breakdown in Section 1, reinforcing that estimate as internally consistent.
Table 8. USD-denominated pension ranges (n=31 of 32 USD holders who specified a range).
The bimodal shape observed in prior waves persists — a large lower band ($20,000–$100,000, 39%) alongside a large upper band (more than $600,000, 29%, up from 23% in the 102-response wave). This distribution continues to support a tiered approach to any financial product or membership offering targeting this audience, with the base size (n=31 USD holders) treated as directional rather than precise segmentation.
Insurance Coverage
Private Insurance remains the most common type (51 of 125, 41%, up from 36%), followed by OHIP (Canadian government, 25, 20%) and Medicare (USA, 24, 19%) — OHIP has edged ahead of Medicare since the 102- response wave, when the two were tied at 21% each. Social Security (USA)-linked coverage was cited by 23 respondents (18%), NHS (UK) by 19 (15%, down from 19% in the prior wave, consistent with the softer UK share in Section 1), and NHF Jamaica by 15 (12%). Only one respondent (1%) reported no insurance coverage of any kind — unchanged from the prior wave, and a defined segment whose needs the Foundation’s healthcare access initiatives should address directly.
Discretionary Spending Priorities
Asked to allocate 20 hypothetical coins across personal spending categories, respondents placed the heaviest weight on House (average 5.07 coins) and Business (4.59), followed by Insurance (3.80). Jewelry (1.24) and Car (2.38) received the lowest average allocations among those who mentioned them. This ranking is unchanged from the 102-response wave in every position — the most stable section of the survey across waves.
5. Stability of Findings Across Survey Waves (61 → 102 → 125)
With three successive completed-response snapshots now available — 61, 102, and 125 — it is possible to ask directly which questions are producing stable answers as the base grows, and which are moving in ways that merit a closer look before being treated as settled. The short answer: the headline findings are stable; a handful of secondary findings have shifted meaningfully, and one shift traces to a data-collection artifact rather than a change in respondent sentiment.
Stable — No Significant Difference
• Healthcare access as the #1 retirement concern: 70% (61-wave), 71% (102-wave), 70% (125-wave). Effectively unchanged across the last two waves.
• Top three commercial initiatives, in order: Retirement Villages with Urgent Care, Private Medical Insurance, Outpatient Emergency Centres Network — unchanged across all three waves, with selection shares within a few points of each other.
• Top two health research priorities, in order: Dementia and Aging, then Diabetes — unchanged across all three waves.
• Pension coverage rate: 77% (61-wave), 81% (102-wave), 82% (125-wave) — a small, steady rise, not a discontinuity.
• Discretionary spending category ranking: House, Business, Insurance as the top three in every wave, in the same order, with averages moving by only a few tenths of a coin.
• Share reporting no insurance coverage at all: 1% in both the 102- and 125-response waves.
• Age 50-or-older share: a steady climb (56% → 61% → 69% → 71%) rather than a jump — consistent with a maturing respondent base as distribution continues, not a change in the underlying finding.
Significantly Different — Worth Flagging
• Opt-in rate (data-collection artifact). The naive Q16-only reading of this wave would show opt-in falling from 72% (61-wave) to 47% (102-wave) to just 38% (125-wave, 48 of 125). Investigation traced this to a mid collection form change: for 46 of 125 respondents, a new question (“which financial institutions do you use”) was inserted at the Q16 position, displacing the opt-in question to Q18 for those respondents only. Reconciling both columns recovers the true opt-in answer for all but one respondent: 77 of 124 (62%) opted in — a meaningful recovery from the 102-wave’s 47%, though still below the 61-wave’s 72%. We recommend checking whether the 102-response export was affected by the same or a related schema issue, since an undetected version split there could mean the 47% figure is itself understated.
• Estimated country of residence — USA share up, UK share down. USA rose from 33% to 42% and UK fell from 26% to 21% between the 102- and 125-response waves. This is internally consistent — NHS-linked insurance share fell in parallel (19%→15%) — but the underlying cause is not yet established: it could reflect a genuine shift in who is responding (for example, a US-weighted distribution channel activated between waves) or simply reflect the new respondents added being disproportionately USA-based. Worth confirming against Foundation outreach records for this period before treating it as a finding about the diaspora population itself.
• Conference attendance mix — more first-timers. First-time respondents rose from 23% (102-wave) to 32% (125-wave), while second-time share fell from 48% to 42%. This most likely reflects continued post conference distribution reaching people who were not at the June conference in person, rather than a change in the conference-attending population, and is consistent with the total base outpacing what a single conference of this size could generate on its own.
• Heart Disease vs. Hypertension research priority (minor reorder). Heart Disease’s weighted score overtook Hypertension’s between waves (103 vs 113 in the 102-wave; 143 vs 138 in the 125-wave). Both remain in the stable middle tier below Dementia and Diabetes, and the swing is well within the range expected from 23 additional responses rather than a substantive change in concern.
• Retirement concern first-choice vs. weighted divergence (minor reorder). In the 102-wave, the first-choice and weighted rankings of retirement concerns were identical. In this wave, Ability to pay for needs edges
ahead of Housing or residence on weighted score (235 vs 191) despite Housing drawing more first-choice votes (10 vs 4) — a modest ranking swap worth watching but not yet a change to the dominant healthcare access finding.
• USD pension range — upper band growing. The share of USD pension holders reporting more than $600,000 rose from 23% (102-wave) to 29% (125-wave), continuing to widen the bimodal pattern already noted. With only 31 USD-currency respondents specifying a range, this is directional rather than conclusive, but is consistent with continued outreach reaching a somewhat wealthier segment of the diaspora.
Conclusion and Recommended Next Steps
This expanded analysis of 125 verified completed responses — drawn from 167 participants who opened the survey — produces the same headline conclusion as every prior pass, with materially stronger grounding and, for the first time, enough successive waves to test that stability directly. Healthcare access is not a plurality finding; it is a clear, consistent majority signal across multiple independent questions and three successive dataset sizes.
• Treat Retirement Villages with Urgent Care as the lead commercial concept for the next phase of development. It is the most-supported initiative (52%), directly answers the #1-ranked retirement concern, and serves the 71% of respondents aged 50 or above — and this has now held stable across three waves.
• Elevate Private Medical Insurance for Returning Residents (50%) and the Outpatient Emergency Centres Network (43%) to the second tier of priority initiatives, alongside GP / Urgent Care / ER Generalist System (34%).
• Prioritise chronic and age-related conditions — dementia, diabetes, hypertension, heart disease — alongside multi-cancer screening (breast, prostate, colon, cervical) when shaping the Foundation’s medical research agenda.
• Design any financial or membership offering in at least two tiers, given the persistent and now-widening bimodal USD pension distribution. The lower tier ($20,000–$100,000 annual pension) and the upper tier (more than $600,000, now 29% of USD holders) have meaningfully different product needs.
• Correct the opt-in tracking issue at the source (the Q16/Q18 form conflict) before the next collection wave, and audit the 102-response export for the same issue — accurate opt-in tracking is directly relevant to results-distribution planning and consent record-keeping.
• Before treating the USA-share increase in Section 1 as a finding about the diaspora population, cross-check the timing of new responses against Foundation distribution activity for this period (e.g., any USA-targeted sponsor or media outreach) to confirm it is not a channel-mix effect.
• Address the uninsured gap directly — though small (1%), it identifies a specific segment for the Foundation’s healthcare access initiatives to target.
