How UBC researchers are changing what it means to age well

Most of our new undergraduate students coming to UBC this fall were born in 2007! By the time they are raising families, Canada will have added about three million seniors to its population. According to Statistics Canada, nearly one in four Canadians could be 65 or over by 2043. This demographic shift will reshape our healthcare and economy, and it raises a pressing question: How can we ensure that longer lives are also healthier, more independent, and more fulfilling?

At UBC, we believe the pursuit of knowledge is inseparable from the pursuit of a better life. Central to that mission is addressing the world’s most pressing challenges—such as caring for our aging population and adapting our systems to meet their needs. This priority is also embodied in our FORWARD fundraising campaign, where fostering “healthy lives” stands as one of three core pillars.

This commitment came to life for me this summer during a visit to the Blusson Spinal Cord Centre, home of the International Collaboration on Repair Discoveries (ICORD). Based at Vancouver General Hospital, ICORD is a spinal cord injury research centre of the UBC Faculty of Medicine and Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute. Touring the facility with Dr. Brian Kwon (PhD’04), ICORD’s director, and the great Rick Hansen (BPE’86, LLD’87)—a UBC graduate and friend to the university—we met researchers, clinicians, students, and patients working together to make spinal cord injury preventable, livable, and curable.

Spinal cord injury research is, at its heart, research into healthy aging. An injury can limit mobility and independence at any stage of life, but these challenges can become more pressing as people grow older. ICORD’s work is about more than medical innovation. It is about ensuring that people with spinal cord injuries can remain active, independent, and socially connected throughout their lives. You can read more about ICORD’s important work here.

At UBC, we understand healthy aging in line with the World Health Organization’s definition: the process of maintaining the functional abilities that enable wellbeing in older age. Healthy aging does not simply mean being free of disease, although preventing illness and injury is important. It means having the capacity to do what you value and to live with dignity, independence, and purpose.

ICORD is just one example of UBC’s commitment to healthy lives. At the Edwin S. H. Leong Centre for Healthy Aging, researchers are taking a life-course approach—looking across the entire lifespan to identify the best opportunities to intervene. Led by Dr. Michael Kobor, a global expert in epigenetics—the study of how our environment and life experiences affect the way our genes are turned on or off—the centre brings together experts across the fields of medicine, the social sciences, and the natural and applied sciences, with the goal of helping people remain healthier for longer into their later years.

Building on this work, many other UBC researchers are advancing healthy aging from multiple perspectives. At the Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health, scientists are advancing research into Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, while the Aging, Mobility and Cognitive Health Lab is defining the role of exercise in promoting brain health and mobility. And at UBC Okanagan, the Aging in Place Research Cluster is developing supportive technologies to help older adults maintain independence and social connection.

These examples remind us that healthy aging is not a single field of study, but a shared challenge across the university and society. Healthy aging touches all of us, whether as individuals, families, or communities. At UBC, we have the talent and skill to bring the best of our teaching and research to this challenge, so that every generation can live with dignity and purpose.