CFN Catalyst Grants reflect citizen identified frailty priorities

Citizen engagement has shaped our research priorities, as demonstrated by our most recent Catalyst Research Grants.

In total, over $900K was awarded to 12 research and quality improvement projects focused on the top 10 citizen identified frailty priorities. All projects secured partners that contributed matching cash or in-kind contributions. Click here to learn about the projects and our newest researchers.

CFN Catalyst Research Grants have played an important part in contributing to frailty research evidence by directly funding innovative, fundamental proof-of-concept discovery work which has led to many of our Network researchers securing larger follow-on implementation funding from federal, provincial and private not-for-profit funding agencies/groups.

The 2018 Catalyst competition was presented in collaboration with the New Brunswick Health Research Foundation (NBHRF), and four projects were funded under the CFN-NBHRF Frailty and Aging Research Engagement (FARE) initiative. FARE funding supports research and knowledge translation in the area of older adults living with frailty. New Brunswick has Canada’s highest concentration of citizens over 65, and FARE was introduced to address the needs of these vulnerable New Brunswickers.

$228K went to these four projects from New Brunswick, with matching funds from NBHRF. The projects funded address issues often experienced by older adults living with frailty: hospital-to-home transitions, the social effects of moving to assisted living, home support following surgery, and retaining mobility. Funding went to:

• Suzanne Dupuis Blanchard of the Université de Moncton for her study titled Social Frailty in Recently Relocated Semi-Independent Older Adults,
• Rose McCloskey of the University of New Brunswick and Pamela Jarrett of Horizon Health Network for their study titled Optimizing transitions from hospital to home for frail older adults: a mixed method study to examine how hospital discharge plans translate into supportive home care environments,
• Keith Brunt of Dalhousie Medicine New Brunswick and Jean-Francois Légaré of the New Brunswick Heart Centre for their study titled Benefit of a Telehealth home-monitoring program for patients living with frailty undergoing heart surgery, and
• Danielle Bouchard of the University of New Brunswick, Linda Caissie of St. Thomas University and Grant Handigran of Université de Moncton for their study titled Stand if You Can.