Housing Policy, Health Policy and Aging Populations: Intersections and Imperatives
November 15, 2022 @ 5:00 pm - 6:00 pm
Date: Tuesday, November 15, 5:00pm – 6:00pm
ZOOM: Register for Zoom Link
Speaker: Jim Dunn, PhD
Professor and Chair of the Department of Health, Aging and Society, McMaster University
Co-Sponsors: Cohousing Hamilton and Hamilton Aging in Community
“There is a great deal of concern about the aging of the population and what it will mean for health services, long-term care facility capacity, etc. and at the same time frequent discussions about ‘aging-in-place’ and ‘age-friendly cities’, etc. Relatively little in these discussions considers the importance of charting strategic future directions for housing, transportation and home-based supports. In the Greater Golden Horseshoe, the number of people over the age of 80 will grow by 700,000 people by 2041, so the need to better coordinate housing and institutional care is urgent. I will discuss some important ways to frame the issues and some future applied research directions.”
James R. Dunn, Ph.D. (Jim) is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Health, Aging and Society at McMaster University and a Scientist at the MAP Centre for Urban Health Solutions at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto. He holds the Senator William McMaster Chair in Urban Health Equity at McMaster University and is the Director of the McMaster Institute for Health Equity. He has held numerous awards and appointments, including the William Lyon Mackenzie King Visiting Chair in Canadian Studies at Harvard University in 2011-2012. In 2020, he established the Canadian Housing Evidence Collaborative (CHEC), a knowledge mobilization and research capacity-building hub funded by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. Trained in urban health geography and social epidemiology, he has published widely in geography, public health, urban planning and epidemiology and has worked closely with governments at all levels to address issues related to the effects of income security, housing, urban development on health and healthy child development. His research program has a strong focus on ‘population health interventions’ and includes projects on the health, social and child development impacts of public housing redevelopment in Toronto’s Regent Park, the development of policy implementation tools for healthier urban form, and the effects of subsidized housing on mental health and well-being. From 2017-2018, he was co-Principal Investigator of the Ontario Basic Income Pilot, a bold study of the effects of a guaranteed annual income on a variety of health, work and social outcomes, involving 6,000 participants in 3 communities in Ontario.
To Register: send an email to [email protected]