The Brown University Center for Gerontology and Health Care Research has a long established commitment to studies of health services in elderly and chronically ill populations. Over the past decade Center faculty have successfully competed for research totaling $24,768,695 in three coherent thematic areas: the management of chronic disease, long term care quality and prevention services. Virtually all these projects are characterized by an interdisciplinary focus in which physician researchers and PhDs collaborate, each contributing expertise and experience to insure the clinical and statistical validity of the results. The Center's AHCPR funded post-doctoral training program has become an integral part of this highly productive research group. Since it's inception 1986 7 physicians and 7 PhDs have been trained in the interdisciplinary environment initially envisioned by Sidney Katz, MD, the program's founder. Several of these individuals have already begun to influence health services research in the areas of health status assessment, geriatrics and long term care and others are launched on promising careers in the field. The goals of the training program proposed continue to be: 1) to teach health services research methods as well as content material relevant to gerontology and long-term care; 2) to train both physicians and non- physician researchers; and 3) to give trainees didactic as well as """"""""hands on"""""""" supervised experience in health services research. Like an apprenticeship, fellows are assigned a faculty mentor whose research is congruent with the fellow's and in which a """"""""major projects"""""""" can be developed. Fellows identify a specific sub-project which they design, implement and analyze. Fellows also complete at least one """"""""minor"""""""" project based upon their own interests and prior work. Fellows present findings at national meetings, publish manuscripts and submit or participate in research proposals. Didactic training opportunities are available from the graduate program in Epidemiology and physicians have the opportunity to obtain a Master's of Science degree. All fellows participate in weekly seminars covering issues ranging from policy analysis to the ethical conduct of research and participate in bi-weekly research seminars in epidemiology and health services research methods. Fellows also have access to the resources of other research groups including the Population Studies Center, the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, Applied Mathematics, the Alcohol and Addictions Center and the new Center for Statistical Sciences.
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