Project 460660

Physically active older adults are healthier, more socially connected and interact more fully with their communities. However, 85% of older adults in Canada are not active enough to enjoy health benefits. Therefore, with our community partners we co-designed Choose to Move (CTM)-a flexible, community-based program that improved physical activity, mobility, social connectedness and diminished loneliness in older adult participants. CTM was scaled-up across 8 years to reach >6000 older adults in British Columbia (BC). However, our reach was primarily in Metro Vancouver. As northern cities face different challenges implementing health-promoting initiatives (e.g., dispersed geography, climate, isolation from metropolitan centres, transportation), 'what works' in southern urban centres may not translate to northern communities. To address this inequity, we aim to build capacity in the community-based seniors' services sector to enable them to adapt and deliver health-promoting programs (CTM) in northern BC. Our objectives for this planning grant are to: 1. develop a specific plan of action to identify/fill gaps in capacity that would enable the community-based seniors' services sector to effectively implement health-promoting interventions for older adults living in northern communities; 2. develop a CIHR Project Grant in Healthy Aging that evaluates implementation and health benefits of CTM, adapted for older adults in northern BC. To achieve these objectives, we propose to bring together researchers who work in healthy aging (in northern communities), physical activity and implementation science, sex and gender science, and key knowledge users representing community-based seniors' services organizations who engage with a diverse range of older adults living in northern communities, to Prince George, BC for a planning meeting. What we learn can be applied to adapting health-promoting interventions for northern BC, and other more remote geographies across Canada.