Community Interventions to Promote Protective Factors for Older Adult Well Being

A Scoping Review Presented by Dr. Amy Best, Dr. Elizangela Storelli, Dr. Andrew Lee, Kellie Wilkerson and Fanni Farago

Friday, November 19, 2021 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM EST
Zoom https://gmu.zoom.us/j/95441748844?pwd=cStUc1NFOFR2c1hpbG91OGtJaEp0Zz09

Managing and maintaining community partnerships can be an unexpectedly messy process. From building a team, growing relationships between researchers and practitioners in partnering with community organizations, to finding ways to stay true to the researcher’s academic commitments, while also giving the community partner the end product they desire. This project emerged when Fairfax County Neighborhood and Community Services approached the director of the Center for Social Science Research, to conduct a literature review to identify successful community interventions to support older adult well-being to guide the County in developing a unified framework for their work with older adults.

After the initial contact, it became clear the County had specific expectations for the research and a team was assembled accordingly. An expert in aging joined to help direct our search and analysis, and the social science research librarian joined the team to assist the two graduate research assistants who were learning a new research methodology, how to conduct what shifted from a literature review to a systematic scoping review. The intricacies of the scoping review process highlight the complexity of the community partnership and challenged the research team to consider how community partnerships can be efficient, equitable and sustainable. In navigating the messy, and at times contradictory research process, the team was able to develop a research question and produce research deliverables that fit the needs of both the community partners and the researchers.

This presentation will outline the process and challenges of conducting research and work with community partners, present findings from the scoping review study, and discuss lessons learned regarding the features and practices of community partnering.