Rural communities face certain challenges that urban centres don’t, and access to health services and support is one of them.
Professor Heather Mair of the Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies has spent more than a decade researching how recreation can support the well-being of rural residents, and now, she has teamed up with Professor Feng Chang from the School of Pharmacy on a new project for rural Ontario.
The team has received a Waterloo Interdisciplinary Trailblazer award to launch Community Conversations, a research project that will help volunteers become advocates for people at risk in rural communities.
“Our goal is engagement and sharing knowledge,” Mair said. “The more people we can reach to bring them into this conversation, the better the supports we can develop – and then, hopefully, more people will find them relevant and useful.”
Mair is already known for her work with isolated communities and the way that women and others connect in social spaces, such as curling clubs. For this new project, the researchers will use curling clubs to recruit participants, who will then be trained to share information on important health resources, such as mental health support, elder care and falls prevention.
They will then do an analysis to see what barriers exist to participating in this type of program, and how participants say they manage their health care when resources are scarce. This data will then be used to make recommendations to the public health system.
“We think that going where people already are, and where they are already having conversations about health issues and supports in their community, is a great place to start,” Mair said. “We are just thrilled by how responsive the curling clubs have been in supporting our recruitment efforts.”
Professors Feng Chang and Heather Mair with student researchers.
How to stay connected in a rural community
Mair’s research suggests that people join places like curling clubs and connect to their community “not because they’ve watched the sport on TV and want to be the next Rachel Homan (although she certainly is inspiring!).
“It’s much simpler than that: They joined because someone invited them. So, stay connected to your community by accepting an invitation to try something new – like curling. And even better, take a minute to invite someone to join you in an activity you love.
