Grant: Operating Grant: Voluntary Sector Knowledge Mobilization Support Grant

The last few years have brought to the forefront a few issues of concern for Canadian older adults. Among them is the desire to age in place and their health. For example, 6 in 10 older Canadians report that they were very or extremely concerned about their health during this pandemic. Also, surveys show that older Canadians want to stay independent in their own homes as long as they can. Physical activity is one of the most efficacious pathways to promoting physical and mental health, preventing disease, maintain independence, and, important to the current times, bolstering immunity. Despite the plethora of evidence of the importance of healthy behaviours only 17% of Canadian older adults participate in enough physical activity to obtain health benefits; with a large proportion who don’t know how to start being active or how to do it safely. Further, of those who are not physically active, immigrant older adults (in particular older immigrant women) are at an increased risk for being inactive. Historical, societal, and cultural factors influence activity levels amongst older immigrant adults. There is emerging evidence that having accessible information presented by identifiable peer role models may increase motivation and confidence in becoming more physically active. These are important considerations for health promoters. As such, the purpose of this proposal is to do multiple language translations of a newly developed evidence-based physical activity for older adults’ resource. In addition, we will promote the resource to older immigrant Canadians using role models of varying ethnicities. Our target audience are Canadians 65 years of age and older. Specifically, our target audience are immigrant older Canadians whose primary spoken language at home is not one of the two official languages. We will be promoting generally to this target population, however in order to have a targeted meaningful reach, we will be recruiting the assistance of our member older adult organizations across Canada who are in direct contact with the older adult population through their membership and outreach; in-turn, assisting our members in providing an accessible, ethnically tailored resource to the range of their older adult members. The objective of this proposal is to translate and promote a newly created physical activity for older adult resource to older Canadians of varying ethnic backgrounds; supporting first steps to becoming more physically active.