The Population Aging Research Center (PARC) at the University of Pennsylvania has 25 years of experience of creating the right setting for interdisciplinary research on the demography and economics of aging, including a focus on diverse and often underrepresented populations domestically and globally. How- ever, PARC is ever-changing; to capitalize on its strong relationships built across Schools and Centers at Penn and a plethora of new hires interested in population-aging research, PARC innovates in this renewal application by initiating a partnership between the School of Arts and Sciences (SAS) and the Perelman School of Medicine (PSOM). Through this SAS-PSOM partnership and accompanying new leadership structure, PARC is able to stimulate and support an expanded multidisciplinary aging research agenda that is innovative and transforma- tive, domestic and global, theory-based and deeply rooted in a life-course understanding of health and aging processes, ambitious in its breath ranging from basic science to applied policy-relevant studies, and comprehen- sive in encompassing an expanded scope of NIA priority themes: (1) Health Disparities in Aging; (2) Early Life- Conditions and Older Adult Health, Behavior and Well-being; (3) Global Aging and Health; (4) Health Care and Long-Term Care in Older Adults; (5) Cognition and Alzheimer?s Disease and Related Dementia (ADRD).
The Specific Aims of PARC include:
Specific Aim 1 : Provide administrative, technical, and infrastructure support to PARC research associates and affiliates for the production (Core A) and dissemination (Core D) of high-quality population-based research on the life-course as it relates to the process of aging, and to facilitate a productive, synergistic, and intellectual dialogue among and between PARC associates and other researchers at Penn and other institutions.
Specific Aim 2 : Encourage transformative research through innovation and nurturing cross- disciplinary collaborations, by targeting the development of junior faculty towards careers in population aging (Core B), and promoting and facilitating long-term careers for participating research scientists.
Specific Aim 3 : Extend and exploit the PARC?s strong scientific and professional domestic & international population engage- ment through PARC's Research Networks (Core C) that share cross-cutting interests with PARC?s Research Themes.
Specific Aim 4 : Ensure PARC?s continued central position at the research frontier of data-driven re- search on the demography and economics of aging, by (i) expanding PARC?s research networks (Core C) and primary data collection efforts; (ii) leveraging the new SAS-PSOM partnership to gain access to unprecedented amounts of secondary data (Core D) and (iii) strategically cultivating new data resources (Core D) that will en- hance the research potential of PARC associates and members of PARC?s Research Networks for path-breaking research.
Specific Aim 5 : Extend PARC?s scientific reach and impact through a comprehensive dissemination strategy, from pilot to peer-review publication (Core D), including training on dissemination, curating population- aging interested audiences, disseminating of non-academic publications (issue briefs).
/Public Health Relevance: Interdisciplinary, co-operative research to advance knowledge in the demography and economics of aging requires an adaptive scientific infrastructure. The Population Aging Studies Center at the University of Pennsylvania is an intellectual platform at the crucial juncture of the behav- ioral, social, and health sciences. The accounting and analytic frameworks of PARC, anchored in demography and health economics, provides insights to help meet the research and evidence needs to promote successful and equitable aging for individuals, and to inform effective health policy responses in aging societies, in the U.S. as well as globally.
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