Episode 8 : (Part 1 ) A conversation with Prof. Eilish Burke IDS TILDA

Eilis, welcome and thank you very much for coming.

Now, I haven't given you your title.

I'm leaving it over to you to explain where you're from and what

you do.

Thank you, Nessa.

And do you know what? It's lovely to be here and it's lovely to talk.

What I love is having the opportunity to talk about the research I'm involved in and particularly research.

the research with people with intellectual disability because that's very special to me.

So my name is Ailish Burke, I'm a professor in intellectual disability nursing and I work in Trinity College Dublin in the School of Nursing and Midwifery but I'm also the co-director of the Trinity Centre for Ageing and the Life course in intellectual disability and it's within that centre that IDS Tilda sits.

So IDS TILDA is the Intellectual Disability Supplement to TILDA.

So what we're doing is we're investigating the health and wellbeing of people with intellectual disability as they age.

And Professor Mary McCarn started IDS TILDA back in 2007, which was the year after TILDA started.

That was commenced by Professor Roseanne Kenny.

At that time, TILDA was part of the global family of longitudinal studies, but none of those studies included specifically people with intellectual disability.

So Professor McCarron saw the opportunity, but she also saw the need.

There was lots of small studies.

There was no large longitudinal study.

And she started IDS Tilda investigating the health and well-being of people as they age.

She really was the absolute passionate person that really wanted to make sure that the voice and the health and well-being were viewed and seen and appreciated.

So I started with IDS Tilda as a researcher back then in 2007.

And I did my master's, I did my PhD and I've worked my way along and I'm now a lecturer in Trinity.

My research sits within IDS Delta.

So what we're doing is we're looking at healthcare utilisation.

And when I talk about health, I talk about the holistic approach to health.

I talk about people's social health, their emotional and psychological health, their biological health, physical health.