Guest Lecture

Date: 29 May 2006, 4 - 6 pm  
Topic: Ageing and health promotion: Opportunities for community and clinical interventions
Speaker: Professor Marcia Ory, Texas A&M University
Location: Social Policy and Ageing Research Centre, Third Floor, 3 College Green (entrance via glass door next to Starbuck’s café on Dame Street, tel no: 01 608 2914)
Description: This is an informal and interactive research colloquium aimed at people who are actively researching or involved in the management and organization of community and clinical health services for older persons.
Contact: Places are limited to 30 in order to facilitate questions and discussion and it is therefore necessary that you book a place by sending an e-mail to ageing.research@tcd.ie

Marcia G. Ory, Ph.D., M.P.H., is professor, Department of Social and Behavioral Health, School of Rural Public Health at The Texas A&M University System Health Science Center in College Station, Texas. Additionally, she is the director of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation sponsored National Program Office on Increasing Physical Activity in the 50 plus population.She also co-directs the Program on Health Promotion and Aging and the TexasHealthyAgingNetworkCenter (TxHAN) located at the School of Rural Public Health.

She is the principal investigator on a five-year NIH-funded Health Maintenance Consortium Resource Center charged with serving as the coordinating hub for a twenty grant consortium designed to improve research on long-term behavioral change. She has also initiated several new research projects and related activities to examine the doctor older-patient relationship, exploring factors affecting the nature and extent of lifestyles communication and strategies for enhancing primary care practice in this area.  As head of the research core of a newly funded CDC Prevention Research Center, she is investigating factors affecting the translation of chronic disease guidelines into clinical and community practice.

Previously, Dr. Ory spent twenty years in federal service as Chief of Social Science Research on Aging in the Behavioral and Social Research Program, National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health. She holds a doctorate from Purdue University and a Masters of Public Health from The Johns Hopkins University. She has been the author of over 100 publications on a variety of topics including physical activity and aging, self-care in later life, family care giving and dementia care, doctor-patient interactions, aging and formal health care, HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment, and translational research. She is a distinguished alumnae of Purdue University, Fellow of several professional organizations (American Academy of Behavioral Research, Gerontological Society of America and the Society for Behavioral Medicine) and a recipient of numerous awards including the Polisher Institute Award for Excellence in Applied Gerontology, the International Council on Active Aging Industry Innovator Award, and Distinguished Fellow at Institute for Advanced Study at La Trobe University .