Newswise — Hamilton, ON (October 1, 2014) – Aging baby boomers and others caring for seniors are, more than ever, turning to the Internet to self-diagnose illnesses and find information on issues related to aging, without knowing whether the information is accurate or trustworthy.

Now the new McMaster Optimal Aging Portal is becoming the go-to place for Canadians, care-givers and health professionals to find quality health and medical information on senior life.

The McMaster University website, officially launched Oct. 1 in conjunction with Canada’s National Senior’s Day as well as the United Nations International Day of Older Persons, will serve as a trusted voice to guide the choices of citizens, caregivers, health professionals and health system decision-makers on matters related to healthy aging.The McMaster Optimal Aging Portal is found at http://www.mcmasteroptimalaging.org

The site is the premier health resource found on the home page of the Government of Canada’s resource for seniors at www.seniors.gc.ca

The portal brings together research evidence about clinical, public health and health systems questions, and presents it in various ways to discuss the key messages from the research, how trustworthy it is, and how it can be acted upon.

The key features of the portal include evidence summaries that present the main points from complex research documents in an easy-to-understand form; blog posts of commentaries about what the scientific research on a topic actually means, and web resource ratings, which help to sort through the masses of other online free resources available on the internet.

The Optimal Aging Portal was created by a team of researchers at McMaster to reinforce the university’s role as a leading authority in Canada on the study of aging.

To help the public learn more about the portal, two online discussions are planned. The first webinar on Oct. 15 from 3 to 4 p.m. will focus on showing citizens how to use the portal’s various features to find information on issues and health concerns. The second webinar on Oct. 21 from 3 to 4 p.m., will focus on how the content of the portal is evaluated, and specifically on the web resources ratings. Information on registration may be found at www.mcmasterhealthforum.org

Comments

The Honourable Alice Wong: Canada’s Minister of State for Seniors and MP for Richmond, B.C.:

“I congratulate McMaster University for developing the Optimal Aging Portal, an invaluable resource on healthy aging which is also easily accessible through the Government of Canada’s seniors.gc.ca website. By combining our efforts, we can maximize results to make a lasting difference in the lives of seniors, caregivers, and their families.”

Suzanne Labarge: Retired bank executive who has a keen interest in ensuring the public has access to information that can promote healthy aging. In 2012 she donated $10 million to the university to establish the Labarge Optimal Aging Initiative. She is the current chancellor of McMaster University.

“With the web you don’t know who to believe and who to trust. There is so much misleading information around and, frankly, a lot of people are selling snake oil. You really want to know you’re doing something good for yourself, not something stupid. We decided having a trusted source would be really important as part of the Initiative.”

Tina Falbo: A Hamilton resident who retired to become a caregiver for her mother, 87, and her father, 88. She has assisted in user testing of the portal.

“The information on the portal is very, very useful to me. It presents timely issues, and the research is scientifically based and written in easy to understand language.”

Parminder Raina: One of the leaders of the portal development, who is a professor of the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics. He holds the Raymond and Margaret Labarge Chair in Research and Knowledge Application for Optimal Aging at McMaster University, and the Canada Research Chair in Geroscience.

“With the continual growth in the number of older adults, one of Canada’s most pressing health and social policy issues is the support and care of our aging population. This portal has been designed to make the best scientific evidence on how we can stay healthy, active and engaged as we grow older, easily accessible and understandable to a broad range of individuals.”

Anthony Levinson: An associate professor psychiatry and behavioural neurosciences who leads the design and development of the website. He holds the John R. Evans Chair in Health Sciences Educational Research and Instructional Development.

“There are many other online resources that deal with health and aging available, but what sets the Optimal Aging Portal apart from the crowd is its emphasis on providing only the best evidence, and telling you why it’s considered the best. The portal filters out the noise and makes it easy to understand how scientific evidence and other types of information can help you.”

Maureen Dobbins: A McMaster professor of nursing who oversees the process for identifying and rating online resources are suitable for the portal.

“The portal includes a database of web-based items that you can watch, read, listen to or interact with, that we have assessed for quality. We’ve done the homework, so you can decide if these items are valuable to you.”

Editors: • The website is at http://www.mcmasteroptimalaging.org/• A full suite of multi-media content including high resolution photos and high definition video is available at http://fhs.mcmaster.ca/media/mcmasteroptimalaging/These include:o A cartoon video about the McMaster Optimal Aging Portal and its serviceso Video interviews with  Dr. Anthony Levinson, physician and leader of the design and development of the website. He is an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioural neurosciences of the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine at McMaster. Dr. Doug Oliver, a Hamilton family physician and specialist in older adults; associate professor of family medicine for the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine. He is familiar with the portal. Suzanne Labarge, a retired bank executive and McMaster University’s chancellor. She provided the funds to launch the portal through the Labarge Optimal Aging Initiative at McMaster University. Tina Falbo, a caregiver for her parents. She has reviewed the website as part of its initial testing.

For more information:Veronica McGuireMedia RelationsFaculty of Health SciencesMcMaster University[email protected]905-525-9140, ext. 22169