Leveraging a contextually sensitive approach to rural geriatric interprofessional education

Interprofessional Education (IPE) has been recognized on an international and national level as an effective method of preparing health professionals for practice while also improving health system outcomes. In particular, recent research highlights that geriatric IPE initiatives can be mutually beneficial both to learners and older adults in rural communities. Despite this trend, IPE initiatives continue to produce mixed results. Although some scholars have acknowledged that IPE initiatives need to consider the complexity of healthcare contexts, there is a dearth of research that considers the diversity of rural communities or rural older adult health. This paper proposes that leveraging contextually sensitive rural gerontological health research marks a next step in IPE development.