Tell us about yourself in a paragraph or two: What is your name, and what are you studying? Where are you from? What was your dream job as a kid? What’s your favourite thing to do outside of school/work?
My name is Kenny Noguchi, I am a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of British Columbia in Kelowna. My research focuses on power-focused strength training in people living with stroke, as well as strategies to increase physical activity participation in people with a broad range of disabilities. I am from Toronto, but I like to say that Hamilton has “adopted me.” I spent 10 years at McMaster University completing my bachelor’s degree in Kinesiology, as well as a master’s and PhD degrees in Rehabilitation Science. My dream job as a kid was to be an ice hockey goalie, but I quickly learned that skating doesn’t come naturally to me. I have now refocused my dream to be a stroke rehabilitation researcher at a Canadian institution. In my spare time, I love coaching baseball, playing recreational sports, like dodgeball and bowling, and spending time with my wife, Amanda, and dog, Joey.
What interested you about the CLSA?
I was keen to learn about the CLSA because of the breadth of data available and its large sample size, including more than 2,000 people living with stroke at baseline. This allows researchers to conduct highly complex analyses. The Data Preview Portal was also an excellent resource to help me generate ideas about the possible types of analyses and studies I could conduct.
What type of research are you doing with CLSA data? Have you published? If so, what are the findings (in lay terms)?
Recently, I conducted an analysis examining physical activity behaviour in people living with stroke in the CLSA. We wanted to know how many people met the physical activity guidelines and whether there were certain factors that impacted their activity levels. We found that less than a quarter of Canadians with stroke met the physical activity guidelines. Remarkably, most people never did any muscle strengthening activities like lifting weights. We then used a technique called latent class analysis, which groups people based on shared characteristics. People with stroke who had lower levels of functional ability, mobility, and social support were less likely to meet the guidelines. Our study is now published in The Journal of Neurologic Physical Therapy.
What is the most interesting or surprising thing you’ve learned from your work with the CLSA? How do you think the CLSA will help you grow as a student or in your future?
The CLSA was one of the first population-based datasets that I have worked with, and certainly the largest. It was very humbling to work with the sheer volume of participants and variables included in the baseline dataset, let alone the follow-up data. Latent class analysis can be highly complex and typically requires many participants to perform, which made the CLSA the ideal fit for this analysis. Working with the CLSA data as a trainee has helped me hone my data management, analysis, and interpretation skills beyond what I could have imagined. I am looking forward to building on these skills in my postdoctoral research, where I will be using other population-based datasets to look at physical activity behaviour.
How do you think the findings using CLSA data will be useful to you, or others, in the future?
Our research is one of the few studies to examine physical activity levels in Canadians with stroke. Our findings of low physical activity levels, especially among those with low physical and socioeconomic well-being, can serve as an important call to action for clinicians and health promotion experts to encourage regular physical activity and exercise in the community. Our research can also serve as a foundation for tailored behaviour change interventions to increase the quantity of physical activity participation after stroke.
Do you have any idea about what kind of job you’d like to do when you finish school?
After my postdoctoral research fellowship, I would like to become an independent researcher at a Canadian institution. My research program will involve exercise and behaviour change interventions to promote musculoskeletal health and physical activity participation in individuals with stroke. My goal is to let the voices of people with lived experience inform my work.
What is a non-career related thing that you are grateful for because of your work with the CLSA?
I am immensely grateful that the CLSA is free to access for trainees completing their doctoral research. This creates a great opportunity for trainees to develop impactful research questions without having to secure grants or rely on primary data collection for their thesis projects –a challenge that many have faced during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.
