We seek a dynamic individual with an interest in conducting research related to religiosity as a determinant of health and a mediating factor in the frailty-mortality association.  This position is jointly funded by the Geriatric Medicine Research (GMR), based at Dalhousie University/Nova Scotia Health Authority, under the direction of Dr. Kenneth Rockwood and Dr. Olga Theou, and the Global Aging and Community Initiative (GACI) at Mount Saint Vincent University, under the direction of Dr. Zachary Zimmer. The successful applicant will be expected to contribute to both research centers focusing on research related to religion and health or frailty. This position is ideal for an individual interested in gaining experience conducting secondary analysis and publishing research related to religiosity and health. The individual must be able to work across research groups with a diverse set of interests and should be well versed in quantitative methodologies. Proficiency in English is required. Applicants can be from any discipline.  Familiarity and interest in gerontology, demography, or epidemiology is beneficial.

Click here for the full job ad and how to apply.

Dr. Zimmer will present during the afternoon plenary from 2:55-3:35 pm on Friday, June 16 on Religiosity, Spirituality, Aging and Health in Global Perspectives. Please click here to access the program for Northwood’s 7th Annual Research Symposium. 

Click here for the save the date.

 

Dr. Zimmer is organizing a session entitled “Religiosity, Health and Aging in International and Cross-Cultural Perspective” at the IAGG World Congress of Gerontology and Geriatrics on July 24, 2017 (4:00 – 5:30 pm). Two members of the Linking Spirituality and Religiosity to Life and Health Expectancy project will be presenting papers – Dr. Chi-Tsun Chiu and Dr. Yasuhiko Saito. Dr. Carol Jagger, another research team member on this project, will be the chair of the session.

Dr. Zimmer will present a paper entitled Trends in Pain Prevalence among Older Adults in the United States: 1992 to 2012 at the IAGG World Congress of Gerontology and Geriatrics on July 25, 2017 during the “Disability, Chronic Conditions, and Pain” session (6:00 – 7:30 pm).

Two papers will be presented at the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population’s 2017 International Population Conference in Cape Town, South Africa on Oct. 29 – Nov. 4, 2017 as part of the Linking Spirituality and Religiosity to Life and Health Expectancy project.

• Zachary Zimmer will present the paper entitled, “Religious participation and health: A global comparative study” in session 401-2 (Identity, Context, and Wellbeing) of Theme 4: Culture, Religion, Language and Demographic Behaviours.
• Mary Beth Ofstedal will present a poster entitled, “Religion, Life Expectancy and Active Life Expectancy in the Unites States” in poster session P4.

Three papers were presented on Friday, May 19th during Session 7 (Active Life Expectancy and Religion) of the 29th REVES meeting in Santiago, Chile.

• Mary Beth Ofstedal gave an overview of the Linking Spirituality and Religiosity to Life and Health Expectancy project.
• Chi-Tsun Chiu presented a paper entitled “How do Multiple Dimensions of Religiosity Associate with Total and Disability-Free Life Expectancy among Older Adults in Taiwan?”
• Mary Beth Ofstedal presented a paper entitled “Religion, Life and Active Life Expectancy in the United States”.
• Yasuhiko Saito presented a paper entitled “Differentials in active life expectancy by religion/religiosity among older adults in Singapore”.

Full presentations can be found on the Linking Spirituality and Religiosity to Life and Health Expectancy Publications page. 

Dr. Zimmer delivered a presentation at the Institute of European and American Studies at Academia Sincia on April 6, 2017 in Taipei, Taiwan. The talk was focused on the project entitled Linking Spirituality and Religiosity to Life and Health Expectancy: A Global Comparative Study.

Please follow the link to view an early release of our paper on functional limitation trajectories of the Cebu cohort – Functional limitation trajectories and their determinants among women in the Philippines. It took several years and numerous rounds of analysis to finally complete this paper, but I believe the time and effort was worth it and the paper is now scheduled for publication in Demographic Research (Vol. 36, Article 30, pp 863-892).

I believe that the two most interesting findings of this research are as follows:

First, there has been an incredible amount of movement into and out of functional limitation across waves for these women.  I think we might be the first to show the enormous amount of diversity in patterns of functional health over such a long period of time among women in a developing country setting.

Second, the typical way in which SES (socioeconomic status) characteristics tend to associate with health do not fit our analysis.  Women who were living in wealthier household in 1983 when the baseline data were collected have ended up having worse functional health trajectories over time than women who were living in poorer households.  The team writing the paper went back and forth with various ideas about why this might be the case.  Whatever the reason, it is important to point out that SES characteristics are not universally associated with better health among the CLHNS (Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey) cohort.

I hope our paper contributes to the CLHNS project overall, and I hope that you may find something useful here for your own research using these data.

-Dr. Zachary Zimmer