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4th Annual Research & Community Partnership Symposium
Shaping the Path: Promoting evidence informed policies that create healthy built environments for older adults
1
INTRODUCTION On November 18
th, 2013, the CIHR Walk the Talk (WTT) and Active Streets, Active People (ASAP) Research Teams hosted the 4
th
Annual Research & Community Partnership Symposium at UBC’s Centre for Hip Health & Mobility (CHHM). These symposia serve to identify priority areas of research through important input from a diverse group of key community stakeholders. Further, the symposia provide us the opportunity to share up-to-date research findings and gain insight from stakeholders as to how evidence generated from the research might inform decision-making and translate into tangible outcomes in their sector. The overall objective of WTT and ASAP teams is to evaluate how older adults’ mobility, health and wellbeing are influenced by social
1 and built
2 environments. This year’s symposium also focused on how (whether) evidence informs practice and policy related
to mobility, health and wellbeing of older adults and the role of the built and social environments. Ultimately we are interested in answering the question: “What makes a neighbourhood a good place to grow old?” Since we began our work in 2010, our research teams have made a concerted effort to forge linkages with key stakeholder groups who are invested in healthy built environments. For this symposium, we invited community leaders who reside within networks that play a role in developing or executing ‘practices and policies’ and who make decisions that impact different aspects of urban form as it relates older adult health and mobility. More than 60 people participated in the symposium, representing health research, the health sector, private industry, provincial government organizations, advocacy groups and municipal staff and decision makers at the City of Vancouver.
Illustrations By: Aftab Erfan, Whole Picture Thinking
PROGRAM Opening Remarks Drs. Joanie Sims-Gould and Heather McKay opened the symposium and set the tone for the event. Joanie highlighted that part of the service of a university is to provide a venue for experts across sectors, disciplines and communities to come together to tackle ‘wicked problems’ in creative and innovative ways. She noted that each delegate was invited for a reason, as they are experts and
1 Social relationships and the cultural context in which people interact.
2 Human-made spaces that includes urban design, land use patterns and transportation networks.
EVENT
REPORT
4th Annual Research & Community Partnership Symposium
Shaping the Path: Promoting evidence informed policies that create healthy built environments for older adults
2
leaders in their fields and professions. To enhance the discussion she encouraged everyone to participate fully and network with one another during breaks. Heather provided an overview of the CHHM – a world class research center based at UBC. She underscored that prevention of disease, illness and injury is a central theme at CHHM and this theme has fostered the Centre’s ‘life course’ approach to understanding health and mobility. She pointed to the mounting evidence that ‘exercise is medicine’ and thus the promotion of physical activity and mobility is the key to optimizing health. One way of promoting physical activity, and consequently health, is through supportive built and social environments, which are the focus of WTT and ASAP research. Heather shared some of the novel aspects of WTT and ASAP research projects that examine street-level built environment influences on older adults’ mobility and health and the role of social connections and supports that enable older adults to be physically active and engage with their neighbourhoods. In an effort to include vulnerable sub-populations of older adults, the team designed studies and established partnerships that include low income and foreign born older adults. These populations are often marginalized from research and therefore little is known about their issues and needs. The ASAP team has been fortunate to partner with the City of Vancouver to conduct a natural experiment in Vancouver’s downtown core – a unique opportunity for research that is only possible through supportive collaborations. Finally, Heather highlighted that research evidence is only one part of creating healthy built environments for older adults – that partnerships and knowledge exchange with practitioners and decision makers is key to the uptake, implementation and application of the evidence. That is why WTT and ASAP assembled this symposium – to bridge the gap between the creation and development of research evidence with the uptake and implementation at the practice and policy levels. I’d Rather Stay – An Evidenced Based Documentary Film A picture is worth a thousand words. The documentary film I'd Rather Stay (22 minutes) illustrates the essence of what we have learned from the WTT and ASAP projects to date. The film intimately explores the joys and challenges of growing older in one’s own home and neighbourhood. Stories are told through the diverse experiences of five older adults, all of whom have participated in WTT or ASAP research projects. The film explores fear, resilience, and the importance of building more accessible and inclusive communities. I’d Rather Stay illustrates some of the ways that the built environment both positively and negatively affects the health and wellbeing of Canada’s burgeoning aging population. Keynote Address: Using Evidence to Create Healthy, Liveable and Equitable Communities Dr. Billie Giles-Corti (Director, McCaughey Centre and Professor, School of Population Health at the University of Melbourne) is a pioneer in built environment and health research. Billie highlighted the multidisciplinary and cross-sectoral approaches she employs in her research that aims to guide policy and practice. The RESIDential Environment (RESIDE) Research Study – a longitudinal ‘natural experiment’ that has been running in Perth since 2003-- evaluates the impact of adopting Liveable Neighbourhood Guidelines (LNG) on walking, cycling, public transportation use and sense of community in new developments (suburban sub-divisions). The Liveable Neighbourhood Guidelines were designed to enable residents to choose active forms of transportation and to create opportunities for recreational or leisure time physical activity. There were many significant findings from the RESIDE study that highlight the impact of neighbourhood design on residents’ health behaviours including: i) the more walkable a neighbourhood, the more residents walked – both for recreation and for transport; ii) access to high quality public open space led to lower psychological distress; iii) park amenities and good lighting increase the use whereas disorder (i.e. garbage, graffiti) decrease their use. Early findings from the RESIDE longitudinal study suggest that many communities tasked with adhering to the Liveable Neighbourhoods Guidelines have not yet completed implementation of all services and amenities and this may take another few years. In other cases, communities did not fully implement key features of the Guidelines and therefore the community did not achieve its ‘liveable’ potential. Billie’s team will evaluate compliance to policy/guidelines within RESIDE communities to determine how uptake of guidelines impacts the findings. Final results from these studies are pending.
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4th Annual Research & Community Partnership Symposium
Shaping the Path: Promoting evidence informed policies that create healthy built environments for older adults
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Billie shared many ‘lessons-learned’ through her many years of research experience on the built environment, especially as it pertained to working in partnership with professionals in government and private industries. She highlighted the integral role of Perth City Planner, Evan Jones, in the launch of RESIDE. Jones led the development of the Liveable Neighbourhood Guidelines and included her health research team in those discussions from the outset. From those early days to date, it has been a journey of interactions, knowledge sharing and collaborations with stakeholders from various sectors and levels. Billie underscored that for large scale projects like RESIDE it is essential to have a champion, like Jones, and partners who recognize the added value of collaboration and knowledge exchange. Local Policy Panel Discussion We also convened a panel of policy and practice leaders to address how (or whether) they plan for or consider ageing, health and mobility in their different roles. We requested that the panel provide their insights into the sorts of evidence and information they need or use to make decisions that aim to create environments and communities that encourage healthy living for older adults. Panel members were: Gordon Harris, President and CEO, Simon Fraser University Community Trust; Glenn Miller, Vice-President, Research & Education, Canadian Urban Institute; Andrea Reimer, Councillor, City of Vancouver; and Bob Rennie, Founder, Rennie Marketing Systems. Dr. Stirling Bryan facilitated the panel and discussion. We share some key points raised during the facilitated panel discussion.
We need to consider planning for an ageing demographic. By factoring in the needs of the very young and very old, communities become inclusive for everyone.
Most Canadian communities are a long way away from meeting ‘age friendly’ guidelines.
Planning challenges are different in urban and rural communities. Likewise, planning approaches and latitude is different for older, established cities compared with growing urban centres.
Improving public transit access is one way of supporting older adult mobility of as many face losing licenses as they age.
New York City, Leeds and Paris are all doing taking innovative approaches with public transit to support older adult mobility – from sensitivity training of bus drivers to increased walk times at intersections, ‘seniors’ zones’ and improved signage and visual information for way-finding.
The City of Vancouver has many ‘age friendly’ policies and initiatives, including an ‘Age Friendly Action Plan 2013-2015.’
Municipalities have traditionally focused on building and maintaining their city spaces; more and more cities are being faced with social planning and programming.
Policy creation at the municipal level is a long journey. After establishing a need for policy addition or reform, staff are tasked with gathering evidence and best practices in the area, engaging community stakeholders on their priorities and values and then engaging City Advisory Boards. From there, action plans are developed. There are many additional steps that are required for the adoption and implementation of a new policy.
Different age demographics place different value on the social sustainability of neighbourhoods compared with the energy or environmental sustainability.
There are many challenges with creating affordable and sustainable communities in cities, like Vancouver. Currently, the focus is on density – building mid- and high-rise buildings versus signal family lots.
Generally speaking, with density comes improved public transportation and more opportunities for social interactions.
It is important to ensure that through community design we respect the ‘culture’ and priorities of the target generation. We must create spaces for our ageing demographic where they feel respected and relevant.
Public consultation, engagement and education are important steps in creating communities that are supportive to the needs of the citizens, including older adults. The public needs to understand how and where they can feed into the design of their communities.
The concept of ‘ageing in place’ needs to be better understood. It has been interpreted to mean aging in one’s community and ageing in one’s own home. Each interpretation has different implications on community design and how to support older adult health, mobility and social connectedness.
EVENT
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4th Annual Research & Community Partnership Symposium
Shaping the Path: Promoting evidence informed policies that create healthy built environments for older adults
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GRAPHIC RECORDING – SHAPING THE PATH SYMPOSIUM ILLUSTRATED Presentations and discussions during the Shaping the Path program were recorded visually by Aftab Erfan, Founder of Whole Picture Thinking. As more than 80% of people are primarily visual learners
3; graphic recording as ‘note taking’ helps people to better
understand and remember information and to generate new ideas and ways of thinking about key issues.
Illustrations By: Aftab Erfan, Whole Picture Thinking
3 U.S. Department of Labor, OSHA Office of Training and Education, May 1996. http://www.osha.gov/doc/outreachtraining/htmlfiles/traintec.html
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4th Annual Research & Community Partnership Symposium
Shaping the Path: Promoting evidence informed policies that create healthy built environments for older adults
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF OUR RESEARCH FUNDERS WTT and ASAP research investigating the interaction between the built and social environments and older adult health and mobility are supported by the following funders:
OUTCOMES FROM THE EVENT The Shaping the Path Symposium strengthened cross-sector and cross-disciplinary relationships among those invited. Throughout the opening and closing reception, delegates chatted, shared experiences and exchanged contact information. Precipitously, the event spurred the formation of a larger network of experts and professionals who are focused on promoting older adult mobility, health and wellbeing through supportive built and social environments. Our WTT and ASAP teams will continue to maintain contact with stakeholder groups to share our research findings, keep our fingers on the pulse to identify research gaps and foster the growing network. Please don’t hesitate to contact our team members with questions or updates. Research Briefs One page research summaries of WTT and ASAP research finding to date are available here: http://www.hiphealth.ca/our_research/research-programs/. Viewing the Film I’d Rather Stay To view the trailer for I’d Rather Stay, go to: https://vimeo.com/80503957. If you are interested in gaining access to the full length film or future screenings please contact [email protected] RESIDE Study To learn more about Dr. Billie Giles-Corti’s work, contact her at: [email protected] http://mdhs.unimelb.edu.au/profile/professor-billie-giles-corti Graphic Recording To view the creation of the Shaping the Path images, go to: https://vimeo.com/83651753 password: symposium For more information on graphic recording, contact Aftab Erfan at Whole Picture Thinking: [email protected] www.wholepicturethinking.com
EVENT
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4th Annual Research & Community Partnership Symposium
Shaping the Path: Promoting evidence informed policies that create healthy built environments for older adults
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Contacting our Research Teams Please feel free to contact any of our team members directly. Their participation on projects and contact information is provided:
WTT AND ASAP TEAM MEMBER CONTACT INFORMATION
INV
ESTI
GA
TOR
S Maureen Ashe, PhD, PT
WTT Associate Professor, Department of Family Practice, UBC [email protected]
Stirling Bryan, PhD WTT
Professor, Dept. of Medicine, Dept. of Health Care & Epidemiology, UBC Director, Centre for Clinical Epidemiology & Evaluation, VCH Research Institute [email protected]
Philippa Clarke, PhD
ASAP, WTT Associate Professor, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan & Survey Research Center; Population Studies Center, Michigan [email protected]
Atiya Mahmood, PhD
ASAP Sr Assistant Professor, Department of Gerontology, Simon Fraser University [email protected]
Heather McKay, PhD ASAP, WTT
Professor, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Orthopaedics, UBC Director, Centre for Hip Health & Mobility [email protected]
Craig Mitton, PhD WTT
Associate Professor, Dept. of Health Care & Epidemiology, Faculty of Medicine, UBC [email protected]
Antonio Páez, PhD ASAP,WTT
Associate Professor, School of Geography & Earth Sciences, McMaster University Centre for Spatial Analysis, McMaster Institute for Transport & Logistics [email protected]
Ryan Rhodes, PhD
WTT Associate Professor, Dept. of Physical & Health Education, University of Victoria [email protected]
Vicky Scott, PhD, RN WTT
Senior Advisor, Falls and Injury Prevention, BC Injury Research & Prevention Unit, BC Ministry of Health Clinical Associate Professor, School of Population & Public Health, UBC Director, Centre of Excellence on Mobility, Fall Prevention & Injury in Aging (CEMFIA) [email protected]
Joanie Sims-Gould, PhD, RSW ASAP, WTT
Assistant Professor, Faculty of Medicine, Dept. of Family Practice, UBC [email protected]
Meghan Winters, PhD ASAP, WTT
Assistant Professor, Faculty of Health Sciences, Simon Fraser University [email protected]
STA
FF Thea Franke, MA
WTT Project Manager, Walk the Talk, Centre for Hip Health & Mobility [email protected]
Amanda Frazer, MSc
ASAP Jr Project Coordinator, Active Streets, Active People Jr., Centre for Hip Health & Mobility [email protected]
EVENT
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4th Annual Research & Community Partnership Symposium
Shaping the Path: Promoting evidence informed policies that create healthy built environments for older adults
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Callista Haggis, MAP
ASAP Sr Knowledge Broker, Active Streets, Active Places, Centre for Hip Health & Mobility [email protected]
Sarah Lusina-Furst, MSc
WTT Managing Director, Walk-the-Talk Team, Centre for Hip Health & Mobility [email protected]
Suzanne Therrien, MPH
ASAP Sr Project Manager, Active Streets, Active Places Sr., Centre for Hip Health & Mobility [email protected]
TRA
INEE
S Christine Voss, PhD
ASAP Jr Post-Doctoral Fellow, Experimental Medicine, UBC [email protected]
Anna Chudyk, MSc
WTT Doctoral Trainee, Experimental Medicine, UBC [email protected]
Md Moniruzzaman, BSc
WTT Masters Trainee, School of Geography & Earth Sciences, McMaster University [email protected]
Catherine Tong, MA
ASAP, Foreign Born Doctoral Trainee, Interdisciplinary Studies, UBC [email protected]
PA
RTN
ERS Dale Bracewell, MASc, PEng
ASAP Manager, Active Transportation, Dept. of Engineering Services, City of Vancouver [email protected]
Karen Larcombe ASAP, Foreign Born
Executive Director, South Vancouver Neighbourhood House [email protected]
