Tell me a fun fact about you.
I live south of Madison, in a more rural area. We have four goats, six chickens, and two barn cats, currently, along with a lot of food that we grow.
Can you tell us about your position and what you do?
Our Center for Aging Research and Education (CARE) is small. We like to say we’re small but mighty.
I do a little bit of everything. I take the lead on overall center operations planning, community outreach and then support that we give to researchers who are focused on older adult health.
Tell us about your community outreach. Who are you partnering with?
At CARE, our work tends to fall into three different buckets:
- supporting education of students on older adult health
- supporting research
- workforce training
We work with different groups for each of those. I like to joke that we play well with others.
For example, I helped develop and continue to be the community partner liaison for a service-learning course that provides community support for people with dementia. Partners on that range from the Alzheimer’s Association to Capitol Lakes continuing care retirement community, and the Department of Health Services. This provides unique opportunities for learning for our students and for research support.
There’s always a surprise. There’s always something that comes out that’s really thought provoking and you didn’t expect.
The training of our elder care workforce partners can include different health care providers across the state. We’re currently doing a series of workshops for direct care staff that’s in partnership with the Area Health Education Centers around the state (Wisconsin AHEC).
I’m particularly invested in two community Board of Older Adult Advisors (BOAAs) that provide input to researchers. One group is based in Madison and is predominantly African American older adults. The other group is in rural southwest Wisconsin.
Both groups have a variety of backgrounds and experiences, but are strongly motivated by, often, unfortunately, negative personal experiences with the health care system.
They want to improve both research and health care so that it’s more responsive to the needs of older adults.
For more information on CARE, read “Bridging the Gap: How UW–Madison’s Center for Aging Research and Education Transforms Care for Rural and Aging Wisconsin.”
What do you enjoy most about your job?
I enjoy the engagement. The BOAAs are near and dear to my heart. It was my idea to start the groups.
They’re in their third year right now. The personalities are amazing, with such rich backgrounds.
They’re so committed to providing that input — that perspective that researchers really need — to everything across the research process from identifying the questions to thinking about how we structure interventions in a way that’s usable, helpful, and responsive to the real needs of people in the community, including groups that are at high risk of health disparities. Many of our BOAA members belong to groups that are at higher risk of health disparities.
We also have fun at the meetings. I never leave a meeting thinking, “Oh, I knew that was going to happen.” There’s always a surprise. There’s always something that comes out that’s really thought provoking and you didn’t expect.
Sometimes there are difficult things to work through. You can touch on negative experiences and communicate across differences, which is important. It takes skill and commitment to do that in a way that is respectful and gets at what it needs to.
What is your insider tip to new faculty, students, and staff?
There are lots of nice little walking loops near the school. I’m a big believer in stepping away from the screen to enjoy some of the loops around the Lake Shore Trail. It’s important to have that healthy balance in the middle of the day that can be so hectic sometimes.
Tell us about the School community.
I appreciate interacting with people in different roles. I had been here for about a year when I was asked to join the Committee on Academic Staff Issues (CASI), a shared governance committee, and happily said yes. I’m still a member today.
It’s very helpful for me to know more clinical faculty. If I were focusing only on direct tasks, that would be difficult to do. Being a CASI member allows me to meet with a different group of people than I usually do.
I’ve met a lot of clinical faculty there, which helps when CARE supports an older adult focused clinical course, for example.
What do you want to highlight to someone who doesn’t know anything about CARE?
We connect people interested in older adult health and well-being across campus, beyond the health sciences. We have a community of practice as well as an affiliate program. We recently added our first medical anthropologist faculty member to the CARE affiliates. We have slowly been growing and expanding. We have all the health sciences represented and we’re reaching beyond.
If we’re able to train people from the beginning on the importance of community engagement in research, just think about the impact of the research and the ability to translate those research findings into real-world solutions.
A future goal is addressing how technology shapes the delivery of health care and the considerations that might be specific to older adult patients. We want to include people at the College of Engineering and Department of Computer Science in our campus networks.
How do we bring more people into the conversation? How do we make it easy for busy people to find new opportunities, whether it’s speaking at a community event or finding collaborators across disciplines for a new proposal?
We keep working on it.
What are ways that someone could support the work of CARE?
We have a lot of interest from researchers, both faculty and graduate students, in getting input from the Board of Older Adult Advisors (BOAAs). We had grant support to start them. To keep the groups meeting, we transitioned to a fee-for-service to cover expenses, including compensating the members for their time and talents in providing this valuable input.
Graduate students or early career research faculty members often don’t have funding yet. Their proposals are a lot stronger if they can incorporate community input. Research is all about meeting needs.
If we’re able to train people from the beginning on the importance of community engagement in research, just think about the impact of the research and the ability to translate those research findings into real-world solutions.
Community engagement is so important for understanding the health challenges and effective solutions for different groups of people. If we’re able to train people from the beginning on the importance of community engagement in research, just think about the impact of the research and the ability to translate those research findings into real-world solutions.
The demand for people without funding for the BOAAs input is greater than we’re able to meet. Unfortunately, without financial support, we can’t remove that price tag for people who don’t currently have funding to cover it.
From your perspective, what does the future of caregiving look like for aging populations here in Wisconsin and beyond?
Budget cuts are a matter of concern for everyone in the field. These have implications for older adults, people with disabilities, and the workforce in providing care — especially for small rural communities.
In developing our new three-year strategic plan, several people encouraged us to do more around policy. We’re going to be working with a doctor of nursing practice (DNP) student on their policy practicum.
I look forward to exploring trends in demographics and resources. The vast majority of Wisconsin is rural. The older populations in rural communities already have less access to health care providers and care.
Our critical access hospitals are important resources in long-term care. We’re seeing more closures of long-term care facilities, both because of the reimbursement model and because of not having the workforce they need to provide care.
The changes in family structure have also made it more difficult. There are fewer options for people to turn to family members who might be nearby and able to provide some assistance. It’s really challenging. Unfortunately, there are a lot of needs that need to be met.
The vast majority of Wisconsin is rural. The older populations in rural communities already have less access to health care providers and care.
There are positive examples. We have a long history of supporting and engaging with dementia friendly community groups. There are people already in communities speaking up about the needs.
What opportunities do we have to think across all aspects of our community from transportation system, financial system, grocery stores to health care? How do we support health, well-being, and independence for older adults?
CARE has worked with UW Health, among other partners, around age friendly care. How do we follow national evidence-based model of age friendly care? How do we also prepare our students while they’re still here to be aware of this model and the care they will provide?
There are innovative, holistic things that people are doing to address the current and growing needs. The challenge is to do the best we can with what we have.