Piloting a Healthy Aging Cohort in Manitoba

This project will cover the set-up, development, and user-testing of the baseline visit data collection in the first 100 participants. Data will be collected on physical activity, diet, sleep, stress, cognition, frailty, health history (including diabetes, alcohol and smoking), facility and program usage at the Wellness Institute (WI), height, weight, volitional oxygen intake (VO2 max), blood pressure, heart rate, clinical chemistry, urinalysis, body composition, social determinants of health, and wellbeing.

Additionally, a public engagement participatory approach will be used to determine which healthy aging outcomes are important to study, including discussion on research priorities, research question, research design, data collection approaches, outcome measures, analysis of results, relevance of findings, and dissemination of findings. Therefore, this pilot project will include the formation of a project advisory group that will include public/patient partners. The advisory group members will discuss ideas around healthy aging and lifestyle and what outcomes are most important to them; and will provide information on the reasons for joining as well as the use of the medical fitness facility, any barriers they face and program needs. The project advisory group will be an integral part of this pilot project. The information obtained from the advisory group meetings and the pilot project will be used to develop the outcomes for the larger cohort study.