Women’s Age Lab

a collage of several older women smiling

To stay healthy as we age, we need social services in the community we can rely on and health care services that pay attention to our unique health and social needs.

But for older women, that’s not happening.

The first and only centre of its kind in the world, Women’s Age Lab is a space for exploration and collaboration on science-driven system and social change that improves the lives of older women.

Women’s Age Lab aims to support the healthy aging of women by reimagining a system and society where older women and their distinct well-being and health needs are recognized and addressed. Together with researchers, healthcare providers, community-based organizations, policy makers and older women themselves, we will be a catalyst to improve the lives of older women around the world.

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We are about to become a super aged society where 20% of the population will be 65+, majority are older women

Founded in 2021, Women’s Age Lab is committed to improving the lives of older women by focusing exclusively on their needs.

Women’s Age Lab plays a critical role in advancing the Women’s College Hospital’s vision for a healthier, more equitable world.

Vision

A world where science is used to recognize and address the unique health and well-being needs of older women.

Mission

To improve the lives of older women by using science to transform care and practice, and drive health system and social change.

Our Values

  • Committed to equity, diversity and inclusion across our mandate
  • Advancing science-based inquiry
  • Putting ideas into action
  • Strengthening intergenerational solidarity and mentorship

We Are All in This Together

At Women’s Age Lab, we are committed to building an inclusive, just and equitable community that values, supports and honours the wisdom, lived experience and contributions of all people. Our work is intended to benefit people of all genders. We aim to cultivate and strengthen a culture of equity, diversity and inclusion in everything we do.

At Women’s Age Lab, we envision a health care system — and a society — that supports women as they age one where the default question asked by policy makers and care providers is: “well, what about older women?” That question should be asked no matter if we’re talking about who should be included in a clinical trial, or what is needed to support people who want to grow older at home, or how we collect data.

We believe asking that question will drive answers in the form of focused interventions and help us find and test solutions tailored to older women.

Guided by this ethos, we will change the way we think, feel and act towards older women through science and by closing the sex/gender and age data gap in these four distinct and interconnected areas:

Our Priorities

Founding Director

Dr. Paula Rochon, seen from the shoulders up, wearing a black blazer, pearl necklace, and chin length brown hair

Dr. Paula Rochon MD, MPH, FCRPC

Founding Director, Women’s Age Lab
Senior Scientist, Women’s College Research Institute, Women’s College Hospital
Professor, Department of Medicine and Dalla Lana School of Public Health, and RTOERO Chair in Geriatric Medicine, University of Toronto
Senior Scientist, ICES

Publications

Dr. Rochon is Founding Director of Women’s Age Lab, a geriatrician and senior scientist at Women’s College Hospital and ICES. She received her medical degree from McMaster University and Master of Public Health from the Harvard School of Public Health. Dr. Rochon is a professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto (UofT) and is the inaugural RTOERO Chair in Geriatric Medicine at UofT. She is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences and a Fellow of the Canadian Geriatrics Society (FCGS).


Dr. Rochon has a strong record of federal funding and has published more than 300 papers in peer-reviewed journals. She held the role of the Vice President of Research at Women’s College Hospital for 12 years. Dr. Rochon chairs the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (Canada’s federal funding agency) Institute of Aging Advisory Board to support research and promote healthy aging across Canada. She is the Deputy Editor of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society (JAGS). She was a member of the Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table, when it was active, where she chaired the Congregate Care Setting Working group.


She has received research distinctions, including being elected to the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences in 2013. She was awarded the Eaton Clinical Researcher of the Year Award from the University of Toronto in 2020, and the Eugenie Stuart Award for the Best Thesis Supervisor from the University of Toronto, Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, in 2022.


Dr. Rochon is committed to the development of trainees and new investigators in aging research and making valuable contributions to our future understanding of aging. Her team has won prestigious research awards, presented across Canada, and published in peer-reviewed academic journals, disseminating key learnings and important findings from their research projects.

Women’s Age Lab is at the forefront of training the future generation of scientists and clinicians.

Trainees

Dr. Christina Reppas-Rindlisbacher seen from the chest up, wearing a white shirt and long brown hair

Dr. Christina Reppas-Rindlisbacher, MD PhD(c)

Dr. Reppas-Rindlisbacher is a trainee with the Women’s Age Lab at the Women’s College Research Institute. Dr. Reppas-Rindlisbacher received her medical degree from the University of Toronto and went on to complete a residency in internal medicine and subspeciality training in geriatric medicine. She is currently working as a geriatrician whilst completing her PhD in Clinical Epidemiology & Health Care Research at the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation (IHPME) at the University of Toronto. Her doctoral research will use administrative databases to explore practice patterns and long-term adverse health outcomes for older adults after delirium. Her goal is to better understand how delirium care differs depending on sociodemographic factors such as gender, income, language, and recent immigrant status. She co-authored a book chapter in “Hazzard’s Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology” and has been awarded several honors including the prestigious Canadian Institutes of Health Research Vanier Graduate Scholarship and the AGS Scientist-in-Training Research Award.

Publications

Dr. Peter Hoang, MD

Dr. Hoang is a trainee with the Women’s Age Lab at the Women’s College Research Institute. Dr. Hoang received his medical degree from McMaster University and completed internal medicine training at the University of Calgary. He is currently completing his geriatric medicine subspecialty training at the University of Toronto. His research interests are using a mixed methods approach to understand the lived experiences of older adults who are at risk of, or face homelessness. Specifically, his research will use administrative databases to understand risk factors associated with homelessness in combination with components such as sex, gender, and culture, and its translation to health outcomes in older adults.

Publications

Altea Kthupi, PhD Student

Altea Kthupi is a PhD student at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto. Currently a trainee at the Women’s Age Lab within the Women’s College Hospital, her research focuses on exploring pharmacotherapy equity for older women. By applying intersectionality theory to geriatric medicine, Altea seeks to understand the complex layers of intersecting inequities in pharmacotherapy. This endeavor builds upon her previous work as a Research Coordinator at the Women’s Age Lab, where she laid a strong foundation for her current academic and research trajectory.

Publications

Ine Beljaars, PhD

Ine Beljaars is a postdoctoral research fellow with the Healthy Cities team at Women’s Age Lab. She holds a Ph.D. in Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice from the University of British Columbia and degrees in cultural anthropology. 

Ine studies the relationship between the micropolitics of the body and the macropolitics of identity, differentiation, and social inequality through the lens of dance. She has over a decade of experience in field research and qualitative analysis and has honed skills in ethnography, participant observation, archival research, in-depth interviews, surveys, oral histories, and creative arts-based methods.

Working under the supervision of Dr. Paula Rochon and Dr. Rachel Savage, Ine is grateful for the opportunity to pivot toward applied and collaborative population health research via the concept of dance as medicine.

Advisory Council

Co-Chairs

Dr. Gillian Hawker, seen from the shoulders up, wearing a black sweater, short red hair, and smiling

Dr. Gillian Hawker

Sir John and Lady Eaton Professor and Chair of the Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto and a Senior Scientist at the Women’s College Research Institute

Gillian Hawker is the Sir John and Lady Eaton Professor and Chair of the Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto and a Senior Scientist at the Women’s College Research Institute. She is a health services researcher whose research focus has been on disparities in access to care for people living with osteoarthritis. She has published over 300 peer-reviewed articles and was the 2020 recipient of the International Osteoarthritis Research Society’s Clinical Research Award. In her role as Department Chair, she has been implementing strategies to enhance equity, diversity and professionalism, with a particular focus on advancing women & marginalized groups in academic medicine.

Jerry H. Gurwitz, seen from the chest up, wearing a suit and red tie and smiling

Dr. Jerry H. Gurwitz

The Dr. John Meyers Professor of Primary Care Medicine. Professor of Medicine, Family Medicine and Community Health, and Population & Quantitative Health Science. Chief, Division of Geriatric Medicine UMass Chan Medical School and UMass Memorial Medical Center

Jerry Gurwitz is the Executive Director of the Meyers Health Care Institute, a joint endeavor of UMASS Chan Medical School, Reliant Medical Group, and Fallon Health. He also serves as Chief of the Division of Geriatric Medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School where he is the Dr. John Meyers professor of primary care medicine. Dr. Gurwitz’s research has focused on improving medications use in older adults, especially those residing in long-term care settings. He has authored numerous original articles, reviews, commentaries, and book chapters in the area of geriatric pharmacotherapy and is a respected teacher and public advocate for improving care of older adults. He is currently principal investigator of the National Institute on Aging-funded Advancing Geriatrics Infrastructure and Network Growth (AGING) Initiative which is a joint endeavor of the Health Care Systems Research Network and the Older Americans Independence Centers. The AGING Initiative focuses on advancing the science of multiple chronic conditions in older adults.