By Jennifer M. McGivney
A new documentary explores how the quality of gerontology research will improve if older adults are involved.
A new documentary advocates for the inclusion of older adults in gerontology research. The video, “Reimagining Expertise: Engaging Older Adults as Research Partners,” was created by Collective Insight in partnership with the LeadingAge LTSS Center @UMass Boston.
“It’s an underlying, fundamental belief that the quality of the research, from conceptualization to the dissemination of results, will improve if it’s been informed all along the way by the people who are the targets of the research,” says LTSS Center Co-Director Marc Cohen in the documentary. “We can take into account their lived experience.”
This approach may make the research process longer and more expensive, presenting barriers to engaged research. To address this challenge, Collective Insight has included grant funders on its advisory board and helped those funders develop grant requirements stipulating that older adults be included as vital participants in the research process.
“By bringing people who have that [lived] experience to the table to talk with researchers, it broadens people’s understanding of what expertise really is,” says Erin McGaffigan, founder of Collective Insight. “It gives people a more realistic understanding of what the issues are and how to break down the questions they want to ask.”
For more information about the “Reimagining Expertise” documentary, read “How—and Why—to Engage Older Adults as Research Partners” on UMass Boston’s Gerontology Institute blog.