The GRTC Subject Recruitment Core will provide a centralized source of potential research subjects. A coordinated, cost effective registry will be created utilizing existing resources which until now have operated independently of one another, duplicating efforts to identify subjects for ongoing projects. The subject registry will include demographic and clinical information about three general groups of subjects, representing populations of interest to clinical investigators in aging. These populations include: (1) rigorously screened healthy elderly individuals, derived primarily from the Veteran's Administration Normative Aging Study, (2) representative community-dwelling elderly, many of whom have conditions such as falls, incontinence, dementia, and glucose intolerance, and (3) institutionalized elderly from the Hebrew Rehabilitation Center for Aged (HRCA) and its consortium of nursing homes, all participating in studies funded under the HRCA/Harvard Research Nursing Home Program. The overall goals of the Subject Recruitment Core facility are to (1) assure the success and productivity of ongoing research projects by providing a ready source of potential research subjects, that otherwise would be difficult for any one search team to recruit, (2) establish a cost efficient mechanism for the identification of potential research subjects that avoids the current costly duplication of effort, (3) facilitate the conduct of pilot research studies utilizing registry subjects and information gathered about them by Core staff, (4) provide opportunities for research experience for fellows and junior faculty, and (5) provide the opportunity to access organs and tissues from autopsies of well-characterized subjects who have died during the course of GRTC funding. These goals will be achieved through the computerized linkage of existing subject pools from the VA Normative Aging Study and HRCA/Harvard RNH, the enrichment of this registry through active recruitment efforts in the community and at affiliated health-related and housing facilities. The extensive clinical resources of the Harvard Division on Aging, affiliations with numerous agencies serving the elderly community in the greater Boston area, and the experience of the principal investigator in establishing successful subject recruitment mechanisms at the HRCA/Harvard RNH, all assure that this GRTC Core will achieve its stated goals.
Showing the most recent 10 out of 23 publications
