The Institute on Aging (IOA) of the University of North Carolina proposes a competing continuation application for an Institutional Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA), requesting a second five years of funding under the new title, Carolina Program for Health and Aging Research (CPHAR). The program will offer advanced interdisciplinary research training and directed research experience to qualified predoctoral and postdoctoral fellows from several disciplines in the area of health and aging research. The CPHAR training effort in health, health care and aging research is predicated on the widely acknowledged leadership of UNC faculty in these areas, and on manifest needs for such research in an aging society. The program augments traditional disciplinary training through a balance of theoretical, analytical, and substantive content covering public health, social science, and clinical perspectives. Our main interest in health and aging requires a clinical and health care grounding. Through public health and the social sciences, we focus on health disparities by gender, race, and class and on rural aging. Because we view individuals in an ecological context and in a life course perspective, trainees learn social science theories and methods and public policy skills for proper analysis. These integrated theoretical, methodological and applied perspectives underscore the importance of interdisciplinarity. The varied departmental and disciplinary backgrounds of the CPHAR Executive Committee, its Steering Committee and its faculty mentor pool reinforce this principle. Interdisciplinary mentorship teams, a required seminar series, and other structured activities ensure that this philosophy is implemented. CPHAR also emphasizes training for diversity and health disparities research in the formal structure of its program, in its leadership, mentors and recruitment efforts. Since inception, CPHAR has met all training goals, while greatly increasing its capacity for training and becoming a mature program. Six of its trainee graduates have entered academic or research careers, all in the aging and health field. CPHAR has established a distinctive focus for research training that is unique to this campus and in the region. We have a large cadre of 43 faculty to support the program, a strong institutional base at the Institute on Aging and its Center for Aging and Diversity, and through our collaboration with other campus training programs and research centers. During the previous program, we were successful in continuously filling our two predoctoral and two postdoctoral positions. Because of our very large and qualified applicant pool, we request two additional predoctoral fellow positions.
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