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Peer to Peer Support Fostering Active Aging
Start date: Jan 1, 2014,

The European Union’s population structure is changing and becoming progressively older. As Europeans live longer and healthier lives, the European Unions is promoting policies to involve older persons more in society and to keep them active. Active ageing is defined by the WHO as ‘The process of optimizing opportunities for health, participation and security in order to enhance quality of life as people age.’ One of the main important determinants of active aging are psychological factors, in particular perceived self-efficacy and copying skills. Peer education can be defined as a process whereby well-trained and motivated people (peer educators) undertake informal or organized educational activities with their peers (people of the same age, the same social position, or having the same abilities as other people) aimed at developing knowledge and skills. Research suggests that people are more likely to hear and personalize messages, and thus to change their attitudes and behaviors, if they believe the messenger is similar to them and faces the same concerns and pressures. This project wants to develop a methodology based on peer to peer training to foster active aging, either on small groups setting than at a distance using the Internet. The training will be aimed at rising perceived self efficacy and copying skills of participants (elders 55+). Thanks to a thorough valorization plan, about 20,000 elders and other stakeholders related with aging and elders will be informed about the project, 1300 will participate in the project, 500 elders and 135 trainers trained.
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