Sexual health research and community engagement projects often focus on youth and neglect middle-aged and older adults. This research demonstrates that crowdsourcing open calls and co-creation activities focused on sexual health are feasible among middle-aged and older adults, including those with disabilities. Key findings from this study suggest that improving sexual health services for middle-aged and older adults must be addressed at various levels of healthcare service delivery.

This article belongs to the collection: Sexual health among older adults: A multi-disciplinary collection.

Older adults’ sexual health is not well understood and older Australians may have unmet sexual health needs. To better address the sexual wellbeing of older adults, we need to be able to effectively recruit them for sensitive health research. This paper outlines the recruitment and sample of the SHAPE2 sexual health study of Australians aged 60 years and over. It demonstrates that sexual health matters to many older adults and that they are willing to engage in online sexual health surveys.

Many sexual health services neglect older adults, defined here as people 60 years and older. Physicians sometimes assume that older adults do not have sex. This editorial describes why we should focus more on the sexual health of older adults. More research, programs, and policies are needed to support sexual health among older people.

This article belongs to the Collection Sexual health among older adults: A multi-disciplinary collection.