Message from the Scientific Director Resilience, resourcefulness and perspective: older adults have a lot to offer about what can make for a happy, healthy life at all ages. But we all face new barriers as we age. Many older adults experience social isolation, poor health outcomes, limitations on mobility or unaddressed frailty — all issues we have seen amplified by the pandemic. MIRA researchers are working with older adults to draw on their deep well of understanding, across all areas of living a good life, while working toward solutions for the barriers older adults face. This past year, MIRA has continued to support these relationships, between researchers and the community as well as between the needs of older adults and skillful research. In this report, you will see how we are funding exciting new projects while supporting established programs of research to continue their growth with successively larger external grants. As mentors and teachers, our members are training the next generation of aging researchers right here at McMaster and, as the host institution for the 2021 CIHR Summer Program in Aging (SPA), we shared that leadership with a national cohort of trainees too. Along with our partners at Dixon Hall, a multi-service agency in downtown Toronto, we are growing the MIRA | Dixon Hall Centre as a model for weaving aging research into the work of organizations directly serving older adults. We are greatly thankful to Suzanne Labarge and McMaster University for continuing to champion interdisciplinary research that supports people to age well. Dr. Parminder Raina Scientific Director of the Labarge Centre for Mobility in Aging and the McMaster Institute for Research on Aging
Message from the Chair of the International Scientific Advisory Committee (ISAC) On behalf of MIRA’s International Scientific Advisory Committee (ISAC), I am very pleased to report on MIRA’s ongoing success in applying innovative approaches to advance interdisciplinary aging research and educational programs at McMaster University. MIRA has been able to support and expand its researcher and trainee network while developing novel research projects in aging during the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic. MIRA is unique in how it supports and stimulates interdisciplinary collaborations, incorporating co-design approaches to aging research. This was clearly demonstrated in the first two major programs of research MIRA sponsored. Now in their second year, both have skillfully adapted their protocols to the COVID-19 challenge. MIRA is supporting the development of an additional program of research titled The Intergenerational and Life Course Cohort and Intervention Research Platform. In this, researchers will longitudinally track an intergenerational cohort in Hamilton. This will allow interdisciplinary teams to investigate interrelationships among the biological, physical, social, lifestyle and behavioural domains that influence health across the life course and between generations. MIRA is also working with an emerging interdisciplinary team to develop Complex Interventions for Frailty and Aging Well, a second novel proposed major research initiative. The ISAC supports MIRA’s leadership in their ambitious efforts to develop a citizen-based research infrastructure in Canada utilizing the VOICE digital platform through an international collaboration with Newcastle University and the National Innovation Centre for Ageing in the United Kingdom. It is anticipated that VOICE will empower the public in shaping health and social care research and driving innovation for an aging population, which aligns with MIRA’s philosophy of engaging end users at all stages of research. MIRA’s approaches to aging research, which address a number of the most pressing aging-related questions facing older adults, their families and social networks, health professionals and policy makers have the ISAC’s continued support. We enthusiastically look forward to our ongoing involvement with the leadership, faculty, trainees and staff of MIRA. Dr. David B. Hogan Professor and Academic Lead, Brenda Strafford Centre on Aging, University of Calgary Chair, International Scientific Advisory Committee (ISAC) of MIRA
PART 3: McMaster Institute for Research on Aging (MIRA)
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