{"id":2033,"date":"2018-02-22T14:58:35","date_gmt":"2018-02-22T19:58:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/chaimcentre\/?p=2033"},"modified":"2018-02-22T14:58:35","modified_gmt":"2018-02-22T19:58:35","slug":"renate-ysseldyk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/chaimcentre\/2018\/renate-ysseldyk\/","title":{"rendered":"Renate Ysseldyk"},"content":{"rendered":"
By Ariel Root<\/em><\/p>\n Religion. Ethnicity. Gender. Age. All of these groups influence one\u2019s sense of belonging. One\u2019s self-image. These factors, and others, can give us a sense of social identity. They can influence how we manage our social world, and can have profound impacts on our health. \u201cSocial identities reflect our group memberships\u2026and are often helpful in coping with stressful life experiences, and also in [healthy] aging.\u201d<\/p>\n Renate Ysseldyk is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Sciences at 杏吧原创 University, where she is interested in the influence of psychosocial factors, like social identities, on stressful experiences such as religious discrimination or transitions associated with aging. Her research focuses on the social determinants of health, particularly among vulnerable populations, and how social identities can influence physical and mental health.<\/p>\n Ysseldyk indicates that many of her research challenges relate to the sample populations within her studies. Vulnerable populations, in her research, have included women who have experienced abuse, and older adults who are living with dementia. \u201cBut these [challenges] are also some of the most rewarding experiences, because you\u2019re really making a difference for people who need it,\u201d she explains. Ysseldyk recalls a project she worked on recently, led by Artswell and in collaboration with the Alzheimer Society of Ottawa and Renfrew County, Bruy\u00e8re Continuing Care, and the Community Foundation of Ottawa, called \u201cMusic Matters<\/a>\u201d. Community participants living with dementia gathered weekly with their caregivers to build a new social identity based on making music, reminiscing about the past, and connecting with each other.<\/p>\n Combining aging, identity, religion, stress and coping, Ysseldyk acknowledges that a lot of her projects are intertwined \u2013 they have to be. And so there are many projects that stand out for Ysseldyk. She recounts her PhD work when she first considered the relationship between social identity and religious affiliation, exploring the psychological implications and outcomes of individuals coping with various threats to their religious identity. From there, Ysseldyk completed a CIFAR post-doctoral fellowship with the University of Exeter in the UK, and later a SSHRC post-doctoral fellowship with the University of Queensland in Australia, both under the guidance of Drs. Alex and Cath Haslam. Here is where she was \u201creally introduced to doing research on some of the social determinants of health in older adults.\u201d Ysseldyk credits these experiences to having evolved her research and demographic interests. And so, despite having several \u201cdifferent lines of research, they all overlap. There\u2019s no one big goal\u201d for Ysseldyk. In fact, it\u2019s about \u201ctrying to figure out the little ways to improve peoples\u2019 health, well-being, and overall quality of life.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/a>Renate Ysseldyk, Department of Health Sciences<\/strong><\/p>\n
<\/a>Using a combination of observational measures (designed specifically for people living with dementia), interviews, and survey questionnaires, Ysseldyk and her students evaluated the cognitive and mental health benefits of the Music Matters program, finding\u00a0that it was also an extremely rewarding project. \u201cSeeing people who were originally quiet, but later opened-up and sang and danced\u2026 you can see on their faces that [the program] is improving their life\u2026 it\u2019s really fun,\u201d she explains. And the benefits of the program were equally evident among the caregivers, who developed a sense of social identity with the group over time, and this had personal, social, health, and even spiritual impacts.<\/p>\n