Professor Sarah Szanton, PhD, ANP, FAAN, earned a 2019 Heinz Award for her work as founder and head of Community Aging in Place—Advancing Better Living for Elders (CAPABLE), an innovative program to improve health and independence while lowering costs for low-income adults aging at home.
Szanton, recently named the inaugural Endowed Professor in Health Equity and Social Justice, has previously been named an American Academy of Nursing Edge Runner, a Baltimore Business Journal Health Care Innovator, and is a member of the Sigma Nursing Hall of Fame.
CAPABLE is a client-directed home-based intervention to increase capacity to “age in place” for older adults. CAPABLE combines home visits from a nurse, occupational therapist, and handyman to equip low-income older adults to live more comfortably and safely in their homes through inexpensive renovations like installing hand rails or lowering shelves or appliances.
It can decrease hospitalization and nursing home stays by improving medication management, problem-solving ability, strength, balance, mobility, nutrition, and home safety, while decreasing isolation, depression, and fall risk.
CAPABLE has expanded from Baltimore to cities across the United States and overseas and received funding from the National Institutes of Health, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services Innovation Center, and the Robert Wood Johnson and Rita and Alex Hillman Foundations.
Learn more about Dr. Szanton’s work at nursing.jhu.edu/CAPABLE