Research + Publications
Ideas designed to move beyond the page.
THRVE brings together research on ageing, housing, health systems, social connection, and the built environment.
Through publications, evidence translation, applied research, and visual frameworks, this work helps turn complex knowledge into clearer strategies, environments, and community models.
Research for Longer Lives
THRVE explores how housing, health, design, community, and the built environment shape the experience of ageing.
This work contributes to an emerging approach we call regenerative ageing: moving beyond the management of decline toward environments and systems that actively support wellbeing, independence, connection, adaptability, and purpose.
Our research is intended to move beyond theory into practical frameworks, design decisions, community models, and applied learning.
The THRVE Master Publication
Selected Preview
The THRVE Master Publication is a research-led body of work examining ageing through housing, health systems, community infrastructure, and the built environment.
It brings together global evidence, applied interpretation, visual frameworks, and community-scale thinking to explore how longer lives can be better supported.
The publication is designed to connect research with implementation, helping readers understand not only what is changing, but what must be designed differently.
It also provides the intellectual and evidence foundation for EverWell™, THRVE’s regenerative ageing community prototype.
This 60-page excerpt offers a curated preview of the broader THRVE publication. It represents selected sections only and is not the complete publication.
Why This Research Matters
Ageing well is not only a healthcare issue.
It is shaped by housing, neighbourhood design, mobility, social connection, access to nature, economic security, community infrastructure, and the systems that support everyday life.
Yet these elements are often studied, funded, and delivered separately.
THRVE’s research brings them into one connected conversation.
The goal is to help make the relationship between longer lives and the built environment easier to understand, easier to apply, and harder to ignore.
Core Research Themes
THRVE’s work explores the systems and environments that shape how people live and age.
01
Regenerative Ageing
Creating homes, communities, and environments that support independence, connection, resilience, and wellbeing as life changes.
02
Housing & Ageing in Place
Understanding how housing design, tenure, adaptability, and neighbourhood context affect independence and quality of life.
03
Built-Environment Health
Exploring how light, nature, movement, acoustics, access, safety, and spatial design influence physical, emotional, and social wellbeing.
04
Social Connection and Belonging
Examining the role of shared spaces, community rhythms, participation, and intergenerational life in reducing isolation and strengthening resilience.
05
Integrated Community Systems
Considering how housing, wellness, care, mobility, services, and community infrastructure can work together rather than operate in isolation.
06
Living Labs and Applied Research
Using real environments as places for learning, testing, resident participation, evaluation, and continuous improvement.
Research Behind EverWell™
EverWell™ is the applied expression of THRVE’s research.
The model draws on evidence related to ageing in place, universal design, community health, social connection, preventative wellness, biophilic design, integrated care, and the built environment.
Research helps shape:
housing and accessibility principles
community amenities and shared spaces
wellness and movement opportunities
social infrastructure
care and support integration
resident participation
Living Lab design
evaluation and future replication
EverWell™ provides a practical context in which research can move from theory into everyday life.
Global Research Contribution
THRVE contributes to wider conversations about ageing, wellness, housing, and the environments required to support longer lives.
Andrea Leja is a featured contributor to the Global Wellness Institute Aging Well Initiative, bringing a Canadian perspective on healthcare integration, housing innovation, ageing policy, and the built environment.
This work helps connect international research with regional implementation and community-scale models.
THRVE’s role is not simply to summarize global thinking, but to interpret what it means for homes, communities, public systems, and development practice.
Global Wellness Institute: Aging Well Research
THRVE contributes to the Global Wellness Institute’s Aging Well Initiative, supporting international dialogue on how people, organizations, communities, and systems can better respond to longer lives.
The following selected reports explore global perspectives on ageing well, communication, housing, health, autonomy, social connection, and the environments that shape later life.
1. What Is Happening with Aging Well? Views from Leading Experts
Global Wellness Institute Aging Well Initiative, 2026
A global expert report examining how ageing well is being understood across health, housing, public policy, financial preparedness, social connection, purpose, technology, and community life.
Andrea Leja contributes the Canadian perspective, arguing that ageing well requires integrated systems in which housing, health care, community, and design work together. Her contribution appears on pages 24–25, with an additional reflection on page 32.
2. Advertising & the Aging Well Category
A Global Advertising Industry Perspective Report
This report examines how advertising and communications continue to underrepresent and stereotype people over 60, despite their growing social and economic influence.
It calls for more authentic, respectful, readable, and agency-centred communication, while rejecting narratives built around decline, pity, or caricature. Andrea Leja is listed as a member of the Global Wellness Institute Aging Well Initiative on page 21.
READ THE GWI ADVERTISING REPORT
Andrea Leja contributes to the Global Wellness Institute Aging Well Initiative. These reports are published by the Global Wellness Institute and are shared here as selected collaborative research and global thought leadership.
Collaboration with Niagara College HAWIC
THRVE is collaborating with Niagara College’s Healthy Aging and Wellness Innovation Centre to support the research and development of the EverWell™ model.
The collaboration is intended to strengthen the evidence behind EverWell™ and support the translation of healthy-ageing research into practical community environments.
Areas of exploration may include:
healthy ageing
ageing in place
built-environment wellness
social connection
literature review and evidence translation
student and faculty engagement
programme development
Living Lab planning
future evaluation opportunities
This collaboration helps bridge the distance between what research tells us and how people experience homes, neighbourhoods, and community life.
Research Briefs, Articles + Thought Leadership
THRVE publishes clear, accessible work exploring the relationship between ageing, housing, community, wellness, and design.
These materials may include:
research briefs
policy and systems reflections
visual frameworks
articles and essays
project insights
community-model analysis
regenerative ageing commentary
presentation and discussion materials
The purpose is to make complex research useful to a wider audience, including homeowners, developers, municipalities, researchers, health organizations, and community leaders.
Books, Guides + Magazine
THRVE’s earlier writing continues to explore how homes, seasons, nature, care, and lived experience shape wellbeing.
This collection includes reflective writing, practical guides, seasonal resources, and THRVE Passport, a modern almanac of wellness, wildness, and wonder.
These works provide a more personal and experiential layer of the wider THRVE practice.
Together, they connect everyday life with the larger questions of how we design, live, adapt, and belong.
Explore the THRVE Knowledge Library
Research + Publication Collaboration
THRVE welcomes conversations with researchers, institutions, municipalities, health organizations, publishers, funders, and professional teams interested in advancing regenerative ageing knowledge.
Collaboration may include:
research contribution
interviews and expert dialogue
evidence review
community-based research
visual framework development
publication partnerships
Living Lab opportunities
speaking and roundtables
applied policy research
knowledge translation
The strongest work often begins when different disciplines and experiences are brought into the same room.
Turning Knowledge Into Better Places to Live
Research matters when it helps shape better decisions, environments, and systems.
THRVE’s publication and research work is designed to support a more connected understanding of ageing, one that recognizes the role of housing, health, community, and the built environment.
Through evidence, interpretation, design, and collaboration, we are working to move ideas beyond the page and into lived experience.