Everyone living in the Circumpolar North should have the opportunity to live a long
and healthy life. However, we live in an environment that can be challenging as we
get older. The physical environment may be difficult to navigate (extreme weather,
changing climate, high costs of living, etc) but it is important to remember that
the social environment also changes for us as we age. As more adults are choosing
to age-in-place and retire at home here in Alaska, we are noticing real gaps in our
knowledge about what healthy aging means to our elders and how we can achieve it in
our Arctic environment.
The Healthy Aging Lab at UAA works to understand the shifting sociocultural landscape
for aging adults and identify service needs to facilitate healthy aging-in-place.
We do this in a variety of ways, from Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR)
projects, to community-engaged courses in health sciences, to individual service-learning
projects—our work aims to benefit not only the student (and future geriatric workforce),
but the senior community as well.
Dr. Corrie Whitmore, an associate professor in the Division of Population Health Sciences, and her team at UAA’s Center for Behavioral Health Research and Services are celebrating the recent publication of a new article. The paper, which was published in the Dec. 2025 issue of Nursing for Women’s Health, offers a framework and actionable strategies for nurses to improve communication and patient experience in discussions around substance use and contraception.
School of Social Work Assistant Professor Amana Mbise and ISER Research Assistant Professor Nathan West are exploring the relationships that Black barbershops play in men's health. Their community-based research prioritizes the lived experiences of the men they talk to, and is revealing how barbershops function not just as grooming spaces, but as social and cultural hubs.
As a neonatal nurse practitioner at Providence Alaska Children’s Hospital and adjunct faculty member for the UAA School of Nursing, Doctor of Nursing Practice alumna and graduate student hooding ceremony speaker for the fall Class of 2025 Stacy Brunquist weaves education into everything she does — training new caregivers, guiding parents learning to care for their newborns, and sharing knowledge with professionals from Utqiaġvik to Sitka.
Ambra McMillian is an Assistant Professor of Dental Hygiene in the School of Therapeutic Sciences, where she combines her passion for the field with the fulfillment of guiding students as they learn and grow.
Dacia Davis, a clinical assistant professor in the School of Social Work and a graduate of UAA's MSW program, finds inspiration in teaching and community.
The UAA Healthy Aging Research Laboratory is partially supported by an Institutional
Development Award (IDeA) from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of
the National Institutes of Health (NIH) under grant number 2P20GM103395. The content
is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily reflect the official
views of Alaska INBRE.
