Evaluating impact of a community co-design process

Funding collaborators: This post-doctoral fellowship is co-funded by the McMaster Centre for Health Economics & Policy Analysis and the Labarge Centre for Mobility in Aging

The goal of the EMBOLDEN study is to promote physical and community mobility among people 55 years of age and older living in neighbourhoods in Hamilton. A key feature of the EMBOLDEN study will be the collaborative approach to co-designing and testing the program, sharing results, and planning program spread to other communities. Older citizen partners, community stakeholders and a diverse interdisciplinary research team will inform the evaluation of the co-design component. Although co-design of community programs is becoming common, evaluating the impact of these processes is somewhat of an afterthought in the literature. This study will evaluate the impact of the co-design process as it unfolds in the EMBOLDEN study.