ASBHM2019 includes two workshops. These will run concurrently on the morning of February 13th.
Workshop 1: Assessing environments for healthy ageing: A participatory approach to using Older Persons Environmental Assessment Tool (OPERAT) to provide online images of age-friendly neighbourhoods.
Professor Chris Stephens
The workshop begins with an overview of the development and validation of a tool to assess neighbourhoods that can support the wellbeing of older people. This tool has been developed in the UK and recently adapted for use in New Zealand. It will be used by researchers and by local authorities and groups interested in developing ‘age-friendly’ communities.
A simple assessment of the houses and streets in one geographical mesh block of 30-60 houses is used to produce a score which reflects levels of natural elements, incivilities and nuisance, and affords opportunities for territorial functioning and navigation and mobility. The scores are recorded on a publicly available map of New Zealand in colour codes (and numerically) so that comparisons may be made within or between small areas in the country. These results are also recorded and may be accessed for use in empirical testing of relationships with other variables.
Secondly, participants will learn how to use the tool and access the web site for recording of results. After some practice in the classroom we will be able to go into the nearest residential neighbourhood and conduct assessments. Materials will be provided for this part of the workshop. The participants will be able to record their results and discuss the implications and use of these local findings.
All information on accessing, piloting, and using OPERAT in different environments can be provided.
Workshop 2: A practical introduction to meta-analysis for behavioural medicine.
Dr Emily Kothe
This hands-on workshop will cover the basics of meta-analysis in the open source software R. Participants will practice important parts of the meta-analysis workflow including:
- Best practice in data extraction
- Calculation of common effect sizes
- Random effects meta-analysis of odds ratios, standardised mean differences and correlations
- Generation of forest and funnel plots
- Report writing using RMarkdown
No prior experience with meta-analysis or R is required. Attendees should bring a laptop on which they can install R (installation instructions will be sent prior to the workshop).
Fees
Each workshop is free for students registered to the conference and $80 AUD for other attendees.