Leveraging the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging to Support Healthy Aging Programming in the Community-Based Seniors’ Services Sector

Transportation problems are one of the most common barriers, after health problems, that prevent older Canadians from participating in more social, recreational, or group activities. United Way Healthy Aging is working closely with the community-based seniors’ services sector to bring solutions to seniors’ transportation. Through the Better at Home program, United Way Healthy Aging supports a network of over 80 agencies across the province to deliver seniors’ transportation services, typically in the form of seniors’ shuttles, buses, and volunteer driver programs. One challenge to advancing transportation programming in this sector, and the work of the non-profit sector more generally, is limited capacity to locate, collect, and analyze data which can be used to quantify the scale of problems, inform where efforts should be targeted, and advocate for change. In this project, I will bridge this data gap by determining how data from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging – the largest and longest multi-year study on aging – can be used to strengthen the sector’s ability to advocate for and deliver transportation programming.

Faculty Supervisor:

Meghan Winters

Student:

Partner:

United Way British Columbia

Discipline:

Sociology

Sector:

Other services (except public administration)

University:

Simon Fraser University

Program: