{
  "abstract": "Objective Falls among community-dwelling older adults are prevalent and have serious individual, societal and economic consequences. Allied health professionals provide key falls prevention interventions yet their representation in current clinical practice guidelines is inconsistent. Increased recognition of allied health roles and delivering context-specific guidelines for falls care could help to address workforce gaps and optimise care approaches. This scoping review explored the roles of the allied health professions in falls prevention screening, assessment and intervention for community-dwelling older adults.Design Scoping review, using the Joanna Briggs Institute methodology for scoping reviews.Data sources PubMed, CINAHL, Scopus, Cochrane, Web of Science and Allied and Complementary Medicine Database databases. The initial search was completed in November 2023, with a secondary search performed in July 2025.Eligibility criteria Sources were eligible if they identified or described a specific role of at least one allied health professional in falls prevention care for older adults. No restrictions were placed on publication type or date. Study protocols and conference abstracts were excluded, and only English-language sources were included.Data extraction and synthesis ChatGPT-4o was used for initial data extraction. Authors then cross-checked and updated inaccuracies as required. A numerical descriptive analysis, and a qualitative content analysis were performed to answer the research questions.Results The search identified 442 relevant sources from 34 countries. The roles of 17 allied health professions in falls prevention for community-dwelling older adults were discussed. Screening, assessment and intervention roles were identified spanning medical, physical capacity, environmental, education and behavioural–psychological domains. Profession-specific interventions closely aligned with their primary scope of practice, and notable areas of overlap between professions were highlighted.Conclusion This review highlights the diverse and overlapping contributions of allied health professionals to falls prevention in community-dwelling older adults. Varying levels of evidence are available across the professions and evidence gaps were highlighted for smaller allied health professions, indicating a need for foundational research to substantiate their roles and facilitate their inclusion in future practice guidelines.Trial registration details https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/7SV3F.",
  "authors": [
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "School of Health and Biomedical Sciences, RMIT University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia",
        "College of Sport, Health and Engineering, Victoria University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia"
      ],
      "name": "Amy Lawton"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "College of Sport, Health and Engineering, Victoria University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia",
        "Institute for Health & Sport (IHES), Victoria University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia"
      ],
      "name": "Nicholas Tripodi"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "First Year College, Victoria University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia"
      ],
      "name": "Rebecca Wospil"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "College of Sport, Health and Engineering, Victoria University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia",
        "Institute for Health & Sport (IHES), Victoria University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia"
      ],
      "name": "Breanna M Wright"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Discipline of Podiatry, School of Allied Health, Human Services and Sport, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia"
      ],
      "name": "Hylton B Menz"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Institute for Health & Sport (IHES), Victoria University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia"
      ],
      "name": "Suzanne Martin"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Discipline of Podiatry, School of Allied Health, Human Services and Sport, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia"
      ],
      "name": "Daniel R Bonanno"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "School of Allied Health Sciences, Faculty of Health, Charles Darwin University, Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia",
        "School of Health, University of the Sunshine Coast, Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia"
      ],
      "name": "Corey Linton"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Department of Allied Health, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia"
      ],
      "name": "Andisheh Bastani"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "College of Sport, Health and Engineering, Victoria University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia",
        "Institute for Health & Sport (IHES), Victoria University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia"
      ],
      "name": "Andrew Ross"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "College of Sport, Health and Engineering, Victoria University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia",
        "Institute for Health & Sport (IHES), Victoria University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia"
      ],
      "name": "Rees Thomas"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "School of Health and Biomedical Sciences, RMIT University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia",
        "First Year College, Victoria University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia"
      ],
      "name": "Daniel Corcoran"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "School of Health and Biomedical Sciences, RMIT University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia"
      ],
      "name": "Timothy McNamara"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "School of Health and Biomedical Sciences, RMIT University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia"
      ],
      "name": "Danielle Baxter"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Department of Medical Education, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia",
        "School of Medical and Health Sciences, Edith Cowan University, Joondalup, Perth, Australia",
        "Faculty of Health, Southern Cross University, Lismore, New South Wales, Australia"
      ],
      "name": "Brett Vaughan"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Institute for Health & Sport (IHES), Victoria University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia",
        "Department of Allied Health, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia"
      ],
      "name": "Rebecca Lane"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "School of Health and Biomedical Sciences, RMIT University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia"
      ],
      "name": "Jack Feehan"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Role of allied health professions in falls prevention for community-dwelling older adults: a scoping review",
  "uid": "b6d2d45c-1da4-5e65-919f-bb8ef8f3b718"
}