Grant: Planning and Dissemination Grant - Institute Community Support

Developing health and social policies that encourage aging well in the community and reduce hospitalizations and long-term care admissions is a priority for the Canadian healthcare system. The present proposal aims to support the participation of an interdisciplinary team of junior researchers in a major scientific conference to present results about the factors that contribute to healthy and successful aging for seniors living in the community. A team of junior researchers working on the International Mobility in Aging Study (IMIAS) developed three symposia (i.e. a dedicated session with two to five presentations on the same topic) for the 21st World Congress of the International Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics (IAGG), taking place in San Francisco in July, 2017. IMIAS is a unique study that followed senior citizens from 2012 to 2016 at five sites, in Canada (Saint-Hyacinthe and Kingston), Albania (Tirana), Colombia (Manizales), and Brazil (Natal). We propose to present key results promoting the health and well-being of seniors living in the community, particularly addressing: 1) what it means to age well from the perspective of seniors; 2) the prevention of falls and of fear of falling, and 3) reproductive and parental correlates of cardiac risk factors in seniors. The results presented can influence health and social policy supporting aging well in the community and reduce health system costs related to poor health in senior citizens, and should therefore be presented directly to decision and policy makers. The World Congress of the IAGG is the largest and most prestigious international conference on aging and it is held every four years. It brings together representatives from medicine, nursing, social science, psychology, finance, policy fields, and other disciplines, making it an ideal event to share the work of emerging researchers and leaders about the health of seniors.