Healthy Cities - Implementation Science Team in Healthy Aging
Working with leaders in implementation science and aging, in 2022 the Active Aging Team assembled a powerful group to successfully apply for a Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), and Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) “Healthy Cities Research Initiative” (HCRI) team grant that will span work over 6 years.
The Healthy Cities – Implementation Science Team in Healthy Aging is an interdisciplinary team of researchers with expertise in implementation science, gerontology, public health, and more. We have a track record of collaboration with community partners and mentoring graduate students and early career researchers. See who’s on our team.
About the Healthy Cities Research Initiative
The HCRI is a strategic initiative of CIHR with the overarching goal of improving health by maximizing the health-promoting potential of cities and urbanized areas in Canada and internationally. This initiative supports research that aims to produce a significant volume of evidence and build capacity within both research and practitioner circles around the development and execution of evidence-driven interventions in urban settings. The ultimate goal is to enhance public health and promote health equity.
NEW: We’re launching an introductory course in implementation and scale-up science!
Here's what you need to know about us:
Vision:
We aim to enhance physical activity and mobility, and decrease loneliness and social isolation in older adults in medium- and large-sized cities using implementation science approaches.
Background:
With the aging population, cities must plan for the diverse needs of older adults. Traditional health promotion programs often fail to address these needs adequately. Our focus is on adapting and implementing an effective, community-based, health-promoting program, Choose to Move, to diverse populations of older adults.
Choose to Move, our flagship intervention, is a flexible, choice-based program developed with older adults and community partners. We're committed to adapting and scaling-up Choose to Move to reach more diverse groups of older adults.
Objectives of our Implementation Science Team Grant in Healthy Aging
With CIHR funds, we will conduct 5 projects that address 4 broad research objectives:
- Undertake evidence syntheses to identify knowledge gaps related to implementation of health-promoting interventions for diverse groups of older adults.
- Describe how the Choose to Move program and implementation strategies are adapted for and implemented with older adults who are South Asian, older men, or older adults in northern BC.
- Evaluate whether readiness (e.g., organizational capacity), implementation strategies (e.g., training and technical support) and implementation factors (e.g., acceptability) influence how Choose to Move is implemented.
Choose to Move program on physical. - Measure the impact of adapted Choose to Move programs on physical and social health of older adults who participate in the program.
Our impact will be engaged community organizations, a program that has been adapted to serve diverse older adults, a new generation of implementation scientists, and healthy, active and connected older adults.
With PHAC funds, we will conduct 3 projects that address 3 broad objectives:
- Build capacity in the community-based seniors’ services sector to implement health-promoting programs for older adults.
- Support scale-up of adapted Choose to Move programs to enhance physical and social health of a more diverse group of older adults than were previously engaged in Choose to Move.
- Support community partners to evaluate a novel web-based pedestrian route-planning and mapping tool (WALKit).
Impact:
Our impact will be engaged community organizations, a program that has been adapted to serve diverse older adults, a new generation of implementation scientists, and healthy, active and connected older adults.
Join us as we strive to 'add life to years' for older adults in our cities through implementation science approaches!
Our Team
Our team includes academics from British Columbia and Australia, knowledge users from community-based seniors’ services organizations in medium- and large-sized cities, and trainees. In addition, research, operations, and communications staff with the Active Aging Research Team (AART) are instrumental to making this work happen. Below, we list the team members on the CIHR/NHMRC/NHMRC grants. More information on AART staff is available here.
Nominated Principal Applicant
Principal Knowledge Users and Knowledge Users
- Anthony Kupferschmidt
- Adrian Prakash
- Sahra-Lea Tosdevine-Tataryn
- Katie Fenn
- Gloria Fox
- Samantha Hartley-Folz