UNSW Associate Professor awarded $3.7m grant to investigate intergenerational care

Ruth Peters, an Associate Professor from the University of New South Wales (UNSW), has been awarded $3.7 million to investigate intergenerational practice – the bringing together of older adults and preschool children for mutual activities that target physical, cognitive and social engagement. 

 

Her work will be the first such trial to research the ability of intergenerational practice to reduce frailty in older adults and improve school readiness in children, and is funded through a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Clinical Trials and Cohort Studies Grant.

 

“While TV shows like the ABC’s Old People’s Home for Four-Year-Olds have shown the potential on-screen benefits of bringing together older adults and preschoolers, our trial will provide the first robust empirical evidence,” Associate Professor Peters said. 

 

“Most of our older adults live in the community and most of our children attend preschool at least part time. If intergenerational practice is effective, it could be implemented to bring benefit to old and young in Australian communities nationwide.”

 

The four-year study will be known as the INTErGenerational Intervention to Reduce fraIlTY (INTEGRITY) trial and will target older adults and preschool children in the community through activities that explore physical, cognitive and social engagement.

 

The trial will see researchers establish up to 44 ‘clusters’ of approximately 10 local adults 65 and over and 10 local children aged between three and five years to test a community-based and co-developed program that is designed to be generalisable, replicable and led by communities in preschools and within community spaces anywhere in Australia. The project involves researchers from eight Australian and international universities and research institutes.

 

For more information, please see here.