The MIRA approach — Adding years to life and life to years

Through leading-edge research, training and stakeholder collaboration, the McMaster Institute for Research on Aging (MIRA) is working to optimize the health and longevity of Canada’s aging population — while upholding the values of integrity, excellence, collaboration, inclusion and transparency. MIRA supports interdisciplinary research teams from across all six McMaster Faculties and research that directly engages older adults, their families, health care providers and other key stakeholders at every stage of activity. The MIRA approach is, from the outset, optimized to create useable, practical, older adult-centred solutions that promote aging in place.

Much of MIRA’s research support flows through two focused research centres — the Labarge Centre for Mobility in Aging (LCMA) and the MIRA | Dixon Hall Centre. These centres connect diversely skilled researchers and trainees around the most pressing questions in aging. To optimize the well-being of Canadians, the LCMA examines the biological, behavioural, technological and environmental factors that can affect individual and community mobility in older adults. The MIRA | Dixon Hall Centre was formed in partnership with Toronto’s Dixon Hall, a multi-service agency supporting older adults. This collaboration is enhancing research with, and services for, older people facing housing insecurity, barriers to transportation and transitions in care, such as hospital-to-home and at end-of-life.

Both research centres are made possible with the generosity of Suzanne Labarge, McMaster’s former chancellor.