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.
School of Nursing alumna Kristen Alcorn turned clinical expertise into entrepreneurial success. In this spotlight, Kristen shares a few of the experiences that shaped her journey in nursing, the things she loves about her job, and how her education at UAA helped her achieve her goals.
Nursing students from UAA and UNH joined South Peninsula Hospital in Homer to share insights on public health issues like shellfish poisoning and tick-borne illness.
Alaska 529 has awarded its 2024 $25,000 scholarship account to Matalyn Dart, an adult student and long-time Alaska resident. Dart was selected from the nearly 13,000 Alaskans who chose to direct half of their Permanent Fund Dividend to their Alaska 529 accounts.
While working towards her nursing degree, Kaycelyn Gajonera received the UAA 2024 Consortium Library Award and plans to pursue a doctorate degree in advanced nursing practice with an emphasis in rural and underserved populations.
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.