Seven awards have been made in the first round of grants and fellowships under the Healthy Aging Research Program (NL-HARP). This program was established by the provincial government in 2008 and is administered through the Newfoundland and Labrador Centre for Applied Health Sciences (NLCAHR).

The aim of the program is to provide the province’s research community with incentives and opportunities to focus their attention on research questions related to healthy aging in this province.

Dr. Marshall Godwin, director of the Primary Healthcare Research Unit in the Faculty of Medicine, has been awarded a $40,000 grant for the project titled Assessing Criterion Validity and Developing Population Norms for the Simple Lifestyle Indicator Questionnaire in the Elderly.

Two NL-HARP master’s research grants in the amount of $5,000 each were awarded. Fang Liu, Community Health and Humanities, is conducting research on measuring the health status of aging population with disabilities in Newfoundland and Labrador. Ellen Haskell, Department of Sociology, is research the social organization of the RV sub-culture.

Geoff Power, School of Human Kinetics and Recreation, will receive a NL-HARP Doctoral Dissertation Award in the amount of $24,000 plus $6,000 research allowance. His research is on muscle fatigue resistance in old and very old women.

Kate Dupuis, PhD candidate at the University of Toronto, was awarded a NL-HARP Post-Doctoral Fellowship in the amount of $40,000 plus $10,000 research allowance. She is investigating the compensatory use of emotion as context in younger and older adults.

Two NL-HARP seed grants were awarded. Dr. Wendy Young, Canada Research Chair in Healthy Aging, will receive $20,000 for her work on development an age-friendly communities research team. Dr. Victor Maddalena, Community Health and Humanities, will receive $20,000 for his research on palliative and end of life care in Newfoundland’s deaf community.

A new round of healthy aging research funding opportunities will be launched in June 2009 through the NLCAHR.