This research is led by Danielle Harris as part of her PhD Fellowship. For more information about Danielle’s research interests, see our PhD Fellowship pages.

 

 

What are we trying to do?

• Evaluate the evidence regarding existing physical activity interventions amongst older adults from more socioeconomically deprived groups to find out how effective they are and whether they are acceptable to this population.
• Understand the attitudes, barriers and facilitators to engaging in physical activity since the pandemic amongst older adults from socioeconomically deprived groups.
• Develop an intervention that is tailored and appropriate to the needs of this group.

 

 

Why is this important?

Many older adults are not doing enough physical activity and their levels of physical activity declined further during the pandemic. This reduction has led to deconditioning and increased risk of falls.

 

Previous research shows that older adults from more socioeconomically deprived groups were less active than other older adults prior to the pandemic, and showed greater decreases in their levels of physical activity during the pandemic compared with those from less deprived groups. These older adults therefore represent a key target for interventions to increase physical activity and help to reduce deconditioning. However, there is a lack of existing evidence as to whether existing physical activity interventions are effective and meet the needs of this group.

 

 

How are we doing it?

There are four planned phases to this work:

 

1. A systematic review examining the effectiveness and acceptability of existing physical activity interventions amongst older adults from socioeconomically deprived groups.
2. A qualitative study exploring the attitudes, barriers and facilitators to engaging in physical activity during and since the pandemic.
3. Co-production of an intervention prototype with a group of public contributors of older adults from lower socioeconomic groups.
4. A small feasibility study to test the intervention prototype amongst older adults from socioeconomically deprived groups.

 

 

Who are we working with?

• Local community groups
• Public contributors

 

 

Funding:

This PhD studentship, is one of 6 that has been made available through a partnership between The Dunhill Medical Trust, ourselves at the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Applied Research Collaboration Greater Manchester (ARC-GM), The University of Manchester, and the NIHR Policy Research Unit in Older People and Frailty / Healthy Ageing.

 

 

Resources:

• News stories

  • Six studentships are available to PhD researchers undertaking projects in healthy and active ageing starting in October 2022

 

 

More information:

 

 

 

PhD Fellow

 

 

Danielle Harris

danielle.harris@machester.ac.uk