Vivian W. Q. Lou, Professor at the University of Hong Kong and Director of the Sau Po Centre on Ageing (China), has a mission to better conceptualize how family dynamics affects healthy aging in long-term care to inform the evidence base of tech-inclusive interventions for older families. By 2024, Hong Kong will officially be ‘superaged’ with more than 21% of its population over the age of 65, which presents two challenges for achieving an ageing-in-place policy goal. One is the increasing demand for care for older persons; the other directly related challenge is the shrinking labour supply to provide such care. Vivian W. Q. Lou has responded to this dilemma as a scholar and an opinion leader looking at how families, community services, commercial sectors, and even volunteers can collaborate and work together to ensure that the older members of our society receive the care they need to continue living with meaning and dignity.
Vivian W. Q. Lou’s work includes innovative studies on the multi-dimensional risk profile of caregivers, dyadic relationships between caregivers’ and recipients’ health-outcome trajectories, and well-being and economic impacts. Crucially, she collaborates with service-sector leaders, business representatives and government committees to ensure the results of her research are translated into real-world impact. This has led to the first-ever development of a carer-centred action plan partnering with community-based groups, family-oriented interventions, industrial initiatives, and a new government commitment to collect census data and build caregiver-centred policies.
Vivian W. Q. Lou has worked to ensure her expertise and leadership are used to generate transformative change for older people beyond academic work. She sits on five high-level government committees locally including the Elderly Commission (EC), the Advisory Board of Census and Statistics Department (C&SD) and Community Investment and Inclusion Fund (CIIF), informing and designing census surveys and carer-centred policy formation.