The Analysis Core (AnC) aims are responsive to priority areas of the NIA Health Disparities Strategic Plan (2009-2013)[1] for reducing racial/ethnic health disparities in our aging population: a) explore aging as a web of genetic, biochemical, physiological, economic, social, and psychological factors, b) find effective interventions to ensure better health for older adults, c) provide resources to promote high-quality research to reduce health disparities, and d) train a diverse workforce of investigators to conduct aging and health disparities research. Understanding determinants of disparities requires multi-level, ecological models and corresponding, psychometrically sound measures that describe policy, environmental, social, family, and individual-level determinants among minority and lower-socioeconomic status (SES) older adults. Conducting effective research in aging and health disparities requires skills in specialized methods including those related to research design, analytic methods, measurement, statistical modeling of secondary data, and adapting evidence-based interventions (EBI) for minority communities. Preventing or ameliorating effects of chronic disease is key to reducing disparities;although EBI are available, there are substantial methodological challenges to translation and implementation in communities to reach minority and lower-SES older adults. By advancing conceptual frameworks and methods, and providing training and technical assistance in these specialized areas, we can increase our collective capacity to reduce health disparities. The University of California San Francisco (UCSF) Center for Aging in Diverse Communities (CADC) Analysis Core (AnC) has worked for 14 years to develop detailed conceptual frameworks, research methods, and measures to advance research with aging minority and lower-SES populations. We have disseminated our work through publications, workshops, websites, reports, executive summaries, teaching, mentoring, and technical assistance. AnC members have experience developing and testing measures, quantitative and qualitative research methods, and secondary data analysis, and in conjunction with the Community Liaison Core (CLC) implementing interventions in community-based settings to reach ethnically diverse older adults. Over the next five years, we will continue to provide training and technical assistance to our CADC scholars and UCSF faculty and fellows in the specialized methods for conducting minority aging and health disparities research and pursue innovative methods and strategies to reduce disparities.
The specific aims are: 1. Increase application of culturally sensitive and scientifically robust measures of mechanisms of health disparities in older adults by: a) developing, evaluating, adapting, and disseminating measures of key multi-level determinants of disparities;and b) developing and disseminating self-directed resources for investigators to locate, review, and select appropriate measures for their own research; 2. Promote and facilitate use of secondary datasets in health disparities and minority aging research by providing training and technical assistance to CADC scholars and others at UCSF in: a. Use of interrupted time series design/analysis to assess effects of policy changes; b. Analysis of secondary data obtained using complex sampling designs (e.g., NHIS, NHANES); c. Linking individual-level secondary datasets to area-level information (e.g., census, other area-level information) to address area-level determinants of disparities; 3. Advance and disseminate methods for translating evidence-based interventions (EBI) to prevent and ameliorate effects of chronic diseases into community-based programs to reach lower-SES and minority older adults. We will create a conceptual model of the processes, develop practical guidelines, and provide technical assistance to scholars wishing to test interventions. By developing and disseminating innovative measurements and methodological approaches (for use with primary and secondary data), we will help build the evidence base on the complex pathways to health disparities. By tackling methodological issues in conducting interventions in ethnic communities, we will increase investigator capacity to carry out such interventions, contributing to reduced health disparities.
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