Ontario Research Coalition

The Ontario Research Coalition of Research Institutes / Centres on Health & Aging (ORC) brings together seven key research institutes who work on producing evidence that could help to improve the quality of care provided to seniors in Ontario.

Ontario’s population is rapidly aging with a particularly large increase in those over the age of 85. While most older adults consider themselves to be healthy, up to 20% are by definition, frail. The prevalence of health conditions increase with age, rising from 50% in those aged 75-84 to 80% in those 85 and older. Recent data however, suggests that it is possible to increase healthy life expectancy.

As the baby boomer generation reaches retirement age, Ontario must target its investments in research on building capacity in aging and health. The ORC’s approach to build capacity is to:

• Enhance linkages with consumers, providers, planners, and educators to promote research translation
• Encourage cross institute/centre collaborative projects in annually identified priority research areas
• Provide incentives for people early in their research careers to focus on health and aging

The ORC functions to foster an environment of collaboration across the various universities and institutes across Ontario, develop partnerships that facilitate Seniors’ health research needs, promote interdisciplinary cooperation, support learning and research opportunities for investigators in Seniors’ health, advocate evidence-based decision making by encouraging knowledge translation and exchange among researchers and health policy decision makers.

ORC Goals

1. Increase Ontario’s capacity to conduct research on seniors’ health and aging by targeting collaborative project development, nurturing innovative talent, and facilitating knowledge exchange among researchers, frontline workers and policy makers.
2. Improve Ontario’s ability to competitive for access to more funding from national peer reviewed competitions (e.g. CIHR, SSHRC, Alzheimer’s Foundation, Heart and Stroke Foundation)
3. Conduct research that is important to health system planning and delivery for older adults in Ontario
4. Strengthen the interface between Ontario researchers and policy makers working on issues related to health and aging.

Contact

Sue Cragg, ORC Coordinator and Knowledge Broker
suecragg@shrtn.on.ca