Capacity Building

Objectives:

Create, enhance and develop the capacity of system stakeholders (patients, researchers, clinicians, policy makers) to engage in patient-oriented research.

Current work in progress:

Provide opportunities to trainees and older adults
Coordinating capacity building across the Collaborative leveraging existing assets of MIRA and ACHRU and providing avenues for new education and learnings from the Collaborative

Co-leads:

Parminder Raina

Professor, Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence and Impact

Parminder Raina is a Professor in the Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact, Lead Principal Investigator of the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA) and Scientific Director of the McMaster Institute for Research on Aging (MIRA). Parminder holds a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Geroscience and the Raymond and Margaret Labarge Chair in Research and Knowledge Application for Optimal Aging, and is one of the founding members of the McMaster Optimal Aging Portal and the Ontario Research Coalition of Aging Institutes/Centres. Parminder specializes in the epidemiology of aging with emphasis on developing the interdisciplinary field of Geroscience to better understand aging from cell to society.

Brenda Vrkljan

Professor, School of Rehabilitation Science

Brenda Vrkljan is a Professor in the Department of Rehabilitation Science at McMaster University, and a trained Occupational Therapist. Brenda is the lead investigator of the McMaster-Candrive team, a Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR)-funded initiative. She is passionate about promoting safe and functional mobility across the lifespan, which is evident in her research in the CanDrive initiative, a study that focuses on older adults and driving patterns. She is also involved in the development of an in-vehicle camera system for tracking the driving performance of older drivers.