Carole Estabrooks
It was announced on July 1 that Carole Estabrooks, a professor with the Faculty of Nursing and Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Knowledge Translation, has won the CIHR Betty Havens Prize for Knowledge Translation in Aging.
This prize recognizes outstanding achievements and excellence in knowledge translation in aging at a local or regional level. The prize of $20,000 is to foster excellence and innovation in knowledge translation activities. The criteria for the award are specific and extensive and Estabrooks clearly met all of them.
Betty Havens was a leading gerontologist committed to improving the lives of senior citizens, with notable achievements in health services research on the aging process. She created, almost singlehandedly, one of the world's richest research infrastructures - the Aging in Manitoba Study (AIM) - which linked administrative health data (including hospital and community health service usage) with a series of interviews with a large random selection of seniors in Manitoba. This infrastructure is used both across Canada and internationally.
Havens carried out her research while she was a full-time policy maker, acting as a research director, provincial gerontologist, and, ultimately, assistant deputy minister of community and long-term care in Manitoba. Her research continues to influence the creation of policy today. She was a member of the inaugural Institute Advisory Board of CIHR Institute of Aging and this award was established at the time of her death in 2005 to recognize her many contributions.
Estabrooks will receive the award at the 2014 meeting of the Canadian Association on Gerontology in Niagara Falls in October.