Grant: Operating Grant: Spread and Scale of Existing CBPHC and eHealth Innovations

Health promotion through physical activity can effectively enhance older adults' social connections, physical and mental health. Despite this, only 11% of Canadian older adults are active enough to enjoy health benefits. To positively affect the health of populations, physical activity programs that demonstrate effectiveness on a small scale must be scaled-up to reach diverse populations across a variety of settings. With BC Ministry of Health, we designed and implemented a community-, choice-based, 6-month health promoting intervention for older adults called Choose to Move (CTM). We called upon the science of implementation as a guide to effectively implement CTM at larger scale-- in 26 communities across BC. CTM improved physical activity, mobility, social connectedness and decreased loneliness in community-dwelling older adults (n=458). As a next step, we aim to scale-up CTM to target older adults at greater risk - those in receipt of home and community care services. Home and community care services are a lifeline for older adults in BC (and across Canada), many of whom are unable to perform activities of daily living. Thus, we propose to 'reimagine' home and community care services to integrate strategies that support the physical and social well-being of older adults who wish to stay at home. To do so we will convene established and new partners to adapt CTM and co-create an action plan to reach older adults in receipt of home and community care services. Our objectives for this operating grant are threefold. First, we will adapt the CTM intervention and implementation strategies to 'fit' the home and community care context. Second, we will adapt the current CTM implementation/scale-up action and evaluation plans for the home and community care context. Third, we will describe the CTM adaptation process. What we learn in BC can be applied to scale-up of health promoting interventions across Canada and the world.