Long-term health-care expert Dr. Vivian Stamatopoulos has won the 2024 International Conference on Aging, Innovation and Rehabilitation (ICAIR) award for Paper of the Year.

The research paper examines the trauma experienced by essential caregivers whose family members were in long-term care during the pandemic. Dr. Stamatopoulos, Associate Teaching Professor, Criminology and Justice, in Ontario Tech University’s Faculty of Social Science and Humanities, co-authored the paper with Dr. Charlene Chu and Amanda Yee of the University of Toronto.

Originally published in the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Health and Well-being, the paper “It’s the worst thing I’ve ever been put through in my life”: the trauma experienced by essential family caregivers of loved ones in long-term care during the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada” took home the top prize during ICAIR’s Scientific Spotlight Series, a competition bringing together authors of prominent research papers to present their findings in person on a variety of topics related to helping the elderly and those living with disability and illness.

Organized by the Toronto-based University Health Network (Canada’s top medical research hospital) through its KITE (Knowledge, Innovation, Talent, Everywhere) research enterprise, the two-day ICAIR conference attracted more than 800 attendees from a variety of professional disciplines, including health care, rehabilitation, engineering and age-tech.

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“Receiving this award has been incredibly humbling. Given what our participants endured during the COVID-19 pandemic, it was very important for us to share their experiences in a way that would convey the gravity of the situation to our readers. To see the paper connecting with so many in academia and beyond is all that we could ask for as researchers.”
-Dr. Vivian Stamatopoulos, Associate Teaching Professor, Faculty of Social Science and Humanities, Ontario Tech University