Hopkins on the Hill: How Can We Support People Who Want to Age at Home?
Brought to you by Hopkins at Home, Hopkins on the Hill, and the Johns Hopkins University Office of Research
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ABOUT THE PROGRAM
Health begins at home, and we all want to be safe and comfortable in our homes. As we age, what difficulties might we encounter that could lead to injury, discomfort, or hindering our independence? Join Sarah Szanton (PhD, MSN, FAAN, ANP) in examining how the CAPABLE program at Johns Hopkins is helping provide support for our aging population around the country in reclaiming their abilities to care for themselves and participate in their communities.
ABOUT THE PRESENTERS
Sarah Szanton, PhD, MSN, RN, is the Patricia M. Davidson Professor of Health Equity and Social Justice and Director of the Center for Innovative Care in Aging. A number of years ago, while making house calls as a nurse practitioner to homebound, low-income elderly patients in West Baltimore, Dr. Szanton noticed that their environmental challenges were often as pressing as their health challenges. Since then she has developed a program of research at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing on the role of the environment and stressors in health disparities in older adults, particularly those trying to “age in place” or stay out of a nursing home. The result is a program called CAPABLE, which combines handyman services with nursing and occupational therapy to improve mobility, reduce disability, and decrease healthcare costs. She has tested the program's effectiveness through grants from the National Institutes of Health and the Innovations Office at the Center on Medicaid and Medicare Services. She has major funding from the Rita and Alex Hillman Foundation to build infrastructure for the CAPABLE program. Dr. Szanton is also conducting a study, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, of whether food and energy assistance improve health outcomes for low-income older adults. A former health policy advocate, Dr. Szanton aims her research and publications toward changing policy for older adults and their families. 
Keri N. Althoff, PhD, is the Provost’s Fellow for Research Communication and an associate professor of epidemiology in the Bloomberg School of Public Health and the School of Medicine. As a Provost’s Fellow, she is expanding our institutional capacity to share research achievements. Dr. Althoff's research interest is aging in the context of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. She serves as the co-director of the North American AIDS Cohort Collaboration on Research and Design (NA-ACCORD), which is a collaboration of more than 20 longitudinal HIV cohort studies of adults with individual-level harmonized data. She earned her bachelor's degree at the University of Iowa, then her MPH and PhD from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Prior to becoming an accomplished epidemiologist, Dr. Althoff worked in public relations and journalism. Her skills and passion for sharing research with broad audiences make her the perfect host for Hopkins on the Hill at Home 2021.
The perspectives and opinions expressed by the speaker(s) during this program are those of the speaker(s) and not, necessarily, those of Johns Hopkins University and the scheduling of any speaker at an alumni event or program does not constitute the University’s endorsement of the speaker’s perspectives and opinions.