Grant: Project Grant

One-third of Canadians will be an older adult (>65y) by 2050. Thus, healthy aging is a public health priority. Many older adult health promoting interventions have been implemented, yet few were scaled-up and none were sustained. CTM is an effective, adaptable health promotion program for older adults. CTM improved healthy aging indicators-mobility, social connectedness, and decreased loneliness of older adults. We are now scaling-up Choose to Move (CTM) across British Columbia (BC) with support from BC Ministry of Health. Community partners and older adults identified three elements essential to CTM success: program flexibility, social interactions, and trusted relationships between participants and activity coaches (who deliver CTM). In this CTM sustainability (CTM-S) study we aim to determine if health benefits of CTM can be maintained. Therefore, we integrated the three essential elements into design of CTM-S and will assess three follow-up approaches: 1. activity coaches hold annual group meetings and call participants quarterly; 2. government service staff (HealthLinkBC) call participants quarterly; 3. we create a Facebook group for CTM-S participants and prompt participants daily. In a fourth group we will not actively follow-up. We will allocate 166 CTM programs (1743 participants) to follow-up arms. In our evaluation we will: 1) assess if during follow-up older adults' mobility, social connectedness/loneliness, physical activity and sedentary time across 12 and 24 months are maintained; 2) measure costs associated with each follow-up arm, program affordability and value to policy makers; 3) identify factors that support or inhibit implementation of CTM-S. Our team has expertise in older adult health promotion and implementation science research, trainee mentorship, economic evaluation and knowledge translation. We endeavour to generate strategies that can be used to implement and sustain effective health promotion strategies for older adults across Canada.