New professor for rural aged care post
Jeni Warburton has been appointed John Richards Professor of Rural Aged Care Research, based at the Albury-Wodonga campus. Professor Warburton is a former Senior Research Fellow in the Australasian Centre on Ageing at the University of Queensland. For more than fifteen years she has studied healthy ageing, the social participation of older people, and social policy issues relating to an ageing society.
In her new role, Professor Warburton heads La Trobe’s John Richards Research Initiative (JRI) into Aged Care in Rural Communities – a five-year $1.5 million venture funded jointly in equal parts by a private benefactor, the University and the State Government.
With projections that nearly one in three people in country Victoria will be aged 60 years or older by 2021, Professor Warburton said research carried out by the JRI will be significant in helping shape future aged care services for country Victoria.
‘Our efforts will focus on delivery of an effective and efficient mix of aged care services for rural and regional Victoria, and the workforce planning and educational services needed to achieve this,’ Professor Warburton said. Announcing the appointment, Dean of Health Sciences, Professor Hal Swerissen, said the John Richards Initiative builds on the University’s strengths in social gerontology and aged care research to address key aged care issues.