The proposed Columbia Center for the Active Life of Minority Elders (CALME), offers opportunity, support and guidance for minority researchers. They will be enabled to assume leadership and engagement in rigorous testing and demonstration of pathways to narrowing and, demonstration of pathways to narrowing nd, if possible, eliminating gaps in health status and care, that presently exist between minority and majority elders. They will also work in consort with researchers from majority groups who have a track record in research on these minority issues. CALME is jointly sponsored by the Columbia University Division of General Medicine and Stroud Center for Study of Quality of Life, in collaboration with the Department of Neurology, Sergievsky Center, psychiatric Institute, Harlem Hospital Center, School of Public Health, and Community Research Applications, Inc., all of whom have shared research strategies, populations and data collection. These resources will be focused on the CALME mission by an Administrative Core and Executive Committee, which will coordinate and merge the efforts of Investigator Development, measurement, Methods and Data, and Community Liaison Cores. CALME will be assisted by an External Advisory Panel and Community Advisory Board, and will host a Coordinating Center to reciprocally support the efforts of other RCMARs. The strengths and Columbian brings to this endeavor are: (1) Established representative cohorts of minority elders: anchored in (i) proximity tot he multi-ethnic community of the northern part of Manhattan Island, and the corresponding multi-ethnic primary care and specialty clinic populations; and (ii) a context of responsible clinical commitment to the well-being of these populations, tied to sustained research involvement, and links enabling coordination between community and clinical research. (2) Access to cooperative subjects for new minority researchers and research projects. (3) Minority involvement at all levels of the Center organization: strong minority leadership, with active majority and minority mentorship relationships, and ability to attract minority trainees. (4) Concentration on Caribbean Latinos (Dominican, Puerto Rican, and Cuban), and African-Americans. 5) Depth and excellence in scientific personnel and technical resources for research on minority health: within Columbia, and at closely collaborating sites; and experience with culturally sensitive approaches to research. (6) Initial emphases on specific health issues which match the interests and potential of a current cohort of minority trainees.
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