Congratulations to C3EN team member Megan Huisingh-Scheetz, Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Chicago and PI of C3EN’s EngAGE study, on receiving the 2024 Terrie Fox Wetle Rising Star Award in Health Services and Aging Research from the American Federation for Aging Research (AFAR)! This award is given to a candidate that has made important contributions with work that respects the value of multidisciplinary health services science and that is likely to be highly influential in shaping practice and research for decades to come. This award is named to honor Terrie Fox Wetle, PhD, who has devoted her professional career to improving the lives of older persons.
Dr. Huisingh-Scheetz is also the recipient of the Mid-Career Innovation Award from the Gerontological Society of America (GSA). This award acknowledges outstanding contributions of an established mid-career GSA member of the Health Science Section to an innovative and influential area of the field in research and/or practice.
Dr. Huisingh-Scheetz will be presented with both awards at the GSA Annual Scientific Meeting in November 2024 in Seattle.
Dr. Huisingh-Scheetz is Associate Professor in the Section of Geriatrics. Her research is focused on understanding how objectively measured activity and sedentary behavior patterns, resting metabolic rate, and body composition relate to frailty progression and frailty-related outcomes. Through her work, she analyzes accelerometry data to assess and trend activity patterns as markers of frailty and to inform frailty activity interventions using the National Social Life, Health and Aging Project dataset, the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey dataset, and local data. At C3EN, in partnership with NORC and Orbita, Inc, Dr. Huisingh-Scheetz also developed and is studying the impact of EngAGE, a technology-based tool utilizing a voice assistant to deliver exercise programming to older adults in their home to reduce frailty. The program leverages caregivers to provide social motivation to the older adult to simultaneously combat loneliness.
The following is a press release issued by AFAR on November 4, 2024.
AFAR is pleased to announce the recipient of our 2024 Terrie Fox Wetle Rising Star Award in Health Services and Aging Research, Megan Huisingh-Scheetz, MD, MPH, AGSF.
This award honors a health services researcher in an early or middle phase of their career who has already made important contributions with work that respects the value of multidisciplinary health services science and that is likely to be highly influential in shaping practice and research for decades to come. The award is a framed citation and carries a cash prize of $5,000.
As a clinician-investigator and former NIA K23 recipient, Dr. Huisingh-Scheetz has a specific interest in understanding the role of technology in advancing translational frailty science. Her work targets two areas of technology: accelerometry and voice-activated assistant devices. She studies how accelerometry-based mobility patterns relate to frailty and aging biomarkers and whether these devices can improve our understanding of frailty, enhance the frailty assessment and support frailty management. As a clinician, she established a novel frailty evaluation clinic in 2011, the Successful Aging and Frailty Evaluation™ (SAFE) clinic, in which she assesses and manages frailty in all referred patients and supports their caregivers.
She has published about the challenges of frailty implementation, produced national reference data for frailty measures, and created frailty assessment and training tools to support clinical frailty integration. She also developed a new technology-based program called “EngAGE” that leverages a voice-activate assistant (e.g., Alexa Echo Show) to deliver long-term exercise and socialization support to frail adults while empowering their caregivers, a project conducted in partnership with NORC at the University of Chicago and Orbita, Inc. She is currently leading a randomized-controlled trial testing EngAGE’s efficacy on physical and social function among multimorbid, homebound, African American older adults.
Dr. Huisingh-Scheetz is an Associate Professor in the Section of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine, the Associate Director of the Aging Research Program, and Co-Director of the Successful Aging and Frailty Evaluation Clinic at the University of Chicago.
The Wetle Rising Star Award is one of AFAR’s four Annual Scientific Awards of Distinction. Dr. Huisingh-Scheetz will receive her award at special ceremony and reception organized by AFAR at the Annual Scientific Meeting of the Gerontological Society of America on November 14th, 2024, at 6:30 pm PT. Dr. Huisingh-Scheetz will present a lecture on her research entitled, “Harnessing Health Services Research to Fuel Frailty Implementation and Innovation.”
Read a related press release here.
Learn more about the November 14th ceremony honoring Dr. Huisingh-Scheetz here.
Learn more about the Wetle Rising Star Award and past recipients here.