Grant: Doctoral: Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships

In Canada, life expectancy has stagnated and years lost to disability have increased. Further, healthcare spending, which reached $264.4 billion in 2019, is projected to continue escalating. This is partly attributable to the rapidly rising older adult population because as people age, the prevalence and burden of chronic disease (and associated costs) increases. Thus, researchers and policymakers are seeking ways to enhance our population's health and well-being. Fostering higher volunteer rates is a promising path to achieving this goal. In addition to benefitting communities (volunteers contribute ~18 billion CAD to the economy annually), growing evidence suggests that volunteering is consistently associated with a reduced risk of mortality. However, underlying mechanisms, and the factors moderating this connection are unclear. The proposed research is relevant to public health because evaluating how volunteering is associated with a range of behavioral-, physical-, and psychosocial-mechanisms will move the field forward by building the scientific case for a causal relationship between increased volunteering and enhanced health, providing new directions for developing broader volunteering programs, policies, and interventions that will effectively enhance the health and well-being of our rapidly aging population. Thus, the proposed research is relevant to CIHR's mission, which is to create new scientific knowledge and to enable its translation into improved health, more effective health services and products, and a strengthened Canadian health care system.