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AFC Webinar – Building Connections: Promising Practices to Reduce Older Adult Social Isolation for Age-Friendly Community Initiatives

Name: AFC Webinar – Building Connections: Promising Practices to Reduce Older Adult Social Isolation for Age-Friendly Community Initiatives
Start: 2021-04-14T12:00:00-04:00
End: 2021-04-14T12:00:00-04:00
Location: Online

April 14, 2021 @ 12:00 pm

Free

Description

The Ontario Age-Friendly Communities Outreach Program has developed Building Connections: Promising Practices to Reduce Older Adult Social Isolation for Age-Friendly Community Initiatives to provide age-friendly community initiatives (AFCIs) with an evidence-based outline for creating or adapting community programs to increase social participation and mitigate social isolation and/or loneliness in older adults. The Outreach Program developed this guide as an urgent response to social isolation and loneliness in community-dwelling older adults, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This webinar will provide a brief overview of this new guide: a brief overview of social isolation and loneliness among older adults and the influence of COVID-19, explore five types of effective programs and describe a set of evidence-based strategies to help AFCIs effectively implement or adapt programs. These strategies focus on improving active engagement of older adults, developing targeted programs and having observable results. Release date and distribution of the guide will also be shared.

Presenter Bio

Zoya Punjwani, MPH

Research Assistant at the University of Calgary

Zoya Punjwani completed her master’s practicum at the Centre for Studies in Aging and Health at Providence Care where she conducted a rapid review to determine effective strategies to mitigate negative effects of social isolation in community-dwelling older adults during and post COVID-19. Across her diverse health research experiences, her passion has been rooted in knowledge translation and bridging the gaps between benchside, bedside and community medicine. She will be starting a PhD in Community Health Sciences, specializing in Epidemiology at the University of Calgary in Fall 2021. Through her research, she will work towards improving quality of care for people with chronic conditions transitioning to adult care.