Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

In Canada, between 1960 and 2009, the proportion of seniors rose from 8% to 14% & it is estimated that this will rise to 23 to 25% by 2036. Aging provides a number of challenges for seniors. Perhaps the most significant of these is dealing with long-term chronic medical conditions. Encouragement of lifestyle practices which promote healthy aging & self-management techniques to effectively deal with chronic disease are of increasing significance as inevitable demographic shifts continue. There is evidence that self-management & an increase in health literacy leads to an increased sense of empowerment and an improvement in health-related quality of life for seniors. This research proposes an innovative partnership between seniors' community organizations and clinical faculty at the University of Alberta to provide peer delivered education and support for seniors living in the community. The study will assess the impact of trained "health coaches" on seniors behaviours in regards to healthy aging, health literacy & health care seeking. Health coaches will be drawn from the membership of senior's centres in Edmonton and will be trained by "expert Faculty." Health coaches will deliver workshops on healthy ageing and self-management in bone, brain & heart health to groups of seniors. These areas have been selected following feedback from our community partners & have the advantage of having sufficient areas in common such as physical activity, nutrition & social interaction, all important in public perceptions of risk and protective factors in cognitive health to allow generic measurement of change in health related behaviours. Each health area will be the subject of a one hour educational workshop & three interactive discussion sessions which aim to discover & overcome barriers to change. Health literacy & health seeking behaviours, maintenance of change in uptake of healthy aging behaviours & the satisfaction of seniors in receipt of peer education will also be measured