Hello What's New in APE Viewers! I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Dr. Kathleen Martin Ginis and discuss some of her work that has focused on physical activity interventions and recommendations for individuals with disabilities, how to change health-related behaviors, and the dissemination of knowledge related to health and disability. Dr. Martin Ginis is a professor at the University of British Columbia and the founding director of SCI Action Canada (a lab that "conducts research on how to inform, teach and enable people living with spinal cord injury to initiate and maintain a physically active lifestyle").
Dr. Martin Ginis is one of the most prolific researchers to have been spotlighted by the What's New in APE platform, as she has over 300 peer-reviewed published articles and received over $11 million in grants. Some of the recent research conducted by Dr. Martin Ginis that is available open-access includes:
- "Participation of people living with disabilities in physical activity: a global perspective", which highlights the current status of physical activity for people with disabilities across the globe, and
- "The First Global Physical Activity and Sedentary Behavior Guidelines for People Living With Disability”, which provides physical activity guidelines for individuals with disabilities.
In addition, to the paper on physical activity guidelines for individuals with disabilities, Dr. Martin Ginis has also released a user-friendly website that outlines specific physical activity guidelines for individuals with spinal cord injuries. For more information related to Dr. Martin Ginis, check out her Wikipedia page.
Within the episode, we discuss Dr. Martin Ginis's journey to becoming a researcher in the field of adapted physical activity, the need for evidence/guidelines to support physical activity interventions for individuals with disabilities, and how practitioners can help to create sustained change in individuals with disabilities' health-relate behavior. In addition, Dr. Martin Ginis defines knowledge translation, and the need to effectively translate knowledge so that people with disabilities and those that work with them in physical activity spaces can access quality information about disability and health.
