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AGORA: health promotion and epidemiology join forces to improve evidence-based health promotion for elderly people.

Projectomschrijving

De Academische Werkplaats AGORA werkt aan het programma ‘Gezond ouder worden’ dat zich concentreert op de regio Oost-Nederland. Deze streek kenmerkt zich ten opzichte van andere gebieden in Nederland door het hoge aandeel ouderen in de bevolking.

Vergrijzing van de bevolking gaat gepaard met een stijging van het aantal leeftijdgerelateerde gezondheidsproblemen en om deze reden biedt de regio Gelre-IJssel goede mogelijkheden om te werken aan de bevordering van gezondheid en welzijn van ouderen.

In het programma wordt een interdisciplinaire werkwijze gevolgd waarbij verschillende disciplines, zoals epidemiologie, gezondheidsbevordering en beleid samenwerken.

De doelstelling van het programma ‘Gezond ouder worden’ is om interventiestrategieën en effectieve evaluatie-instrumenten te ontwikkelen om de gezondheid en het welzijn van ouderen te bevorderen. Dit wordt uitgewerkt in drie geïntegreerde deelprojecten die zich op een deel van het programma focussen.

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Samenvatting van de aanvraag

In the Netherlands, increased life expectancy in the last century has resulted in a sharp rise and growing share of elderly people in the population leading to an increasing amount of age-related health problems. In the Gelre-IJssel region the share rise of elderly people aged 65 years and over is almost 3% higher than the average for the Netherlands. As a strong increase of the number of elderly people is expected for the Netherlands as a whole in the coming decades, the Gelre-IJssel region can serve as a model to secure quality of life and well-being of elderly people by developing a health promotion programme for healthy ageing. This calls for an interdisciplinary approach as health is multidimensional (physical, mental and social) and is influenced by many factors, such as economic and social factors, lifestyle behaviour, physical environment, and services. As a consequence, many parties professions, and policy areas are involved. Recent developments in the field of public health offer opportunities for the development of new approaches on health promotion. First, Saan and de Haes (2005) set the standard for health promotion by developing the Health Promotion Framework, a solid theoretical basis that connects the different aspects of health promotion. Second, the GGD Gelre-IJssel and Wageningen University have created an excellent infrastructure by setting up an Academic Collaborative Centre, named AGORA. AGORA joins knowledge from practice, science and policy in order to bridge the gap between those fields. With this coherent approach and collaborative efforts, AGORA will contribute to more effective, evidence-based and problem-oriented approaches for healthy ageing. The programme aims to use a comprehensive interdisciplinary framework to analyse determinants of health, interventions and intersectoral collaboration processes related to healthy ageing, and to use this knowledge base for the development of intervention strategies and effective evaluation tools for improving health and well-being of the elderly. For this, the following three complementary and interrelated core-projects will be conducted: 1. Health status and its determinants in the elderly: The objective of this project is to describe quality of life of elderly (physical, mental and social well-being) and its determinants in order to identify the most urgent health needs using existing epidemiological data; moreover, these individual-based (biomedical) data will be enriched with information on the social, physical and infrastructural environment. These sources of information will be combined to help designing an intervention programme and an optimized monitoring system for health status and needs for elderly people. 2. Knowledge management system for intersectoral collaboration: This project focuses on the development of a knowledge management system meant to support and facilitate intersectoral collaboration for healthy ageing in the GGD Gelre-IJssel region. Following an inventory of relevant organisations, stakeholders and public health policymakers, guidelines for effective intersectoral collaboration and community action for healthy ageing will be developed and evaluated. The system can also be used for health promotion in other areas. 3. Evidence-based intervention programme for healthy ageing: Baseline inventories in the first year of the former two projects will be integrated into the scientific and organisational background that guides the development and implementation of an intervention programme in elderly. Following an inventory of ongoing and completed interventions in elderly, the intervention programme will address the behavioural, social, contextual and organisational determinants and the health and well-being of elderly. The intervention as such will include a baseline assessment, implementation of the intervention, an effect evaluation and process evaluation, all to be conducted at the GGD. AGORA will make a great effort to disseminate her knowledge on interventions and practices to other parties, professionals, and researchers working in the field of public health, and to students interested in this area.

Onderwerpen

Kenmerken

Projectnummer:
71200001
Looptijd: 100%
Looptijd: 100 %
2006
2013
Projectleider en penvoerder:
Verantwoordelijke organisatie:
Wageningen Universiteit