The Experience Corps [tm] (EC) is a community-based, health promotion model for older adults embedded in a? social engagement program. EC provides innovative generative roles for older adults, mobilizing their time,? experience, and wisdom in a program designed to improve academic and behavioral outcomes of children in? public elementary schools. This Program Project will evaluate a community-based model for health? promotion for older adults, that is embedded within a social engagement program that brings their time,? experience, and wisdom to bear to improve academic and behavioral outcomes of children in public? elementary schools. This core will conduct recruitment and retention of older adult volunteers for Projects 1,? 3 and 4 and 5 in this program project. Project 1 will evaluate the physical and cognitive functioning in older? adults who are assigned either 1) to the intervention group that participates in Experience Corps, a program? for placing a critical mass of adults in selected Baltimore City Schools or 2) to a control group that receives a? referral to low-intensity volunteer activities offered through the Baltimore Commission on Aging and? Retirement Education. Project 3 proposes to utilize functional MRIs to evaluate brain differences in a? subgroup of the intervention and control group. Project 4 will evaluate social and psychological outcomes in? the older adult participants, and a Project 5 will explore the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of the? program.
The specific aims follow: 1) Implement strategies for recruitment and retention of older adult? volunteers for participation in the randomized controlled trial for Projects 1, 3, 4 and 5. This core has refined? strategies previously used to recruit older adults, given the possibility of randomization to an EC participant? group or a control group, and to retain older adults randomized as both the EC participants and controls? throughout the evaluation process. 2)Continuously refine and evaluate recruitment messages and strategies,? and analyze the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness for specific target populations of potential older adult? volunteers with Project 5 and Cores C and D. 3) Identify and analyze individual and community factors that? impact the effectiveness of recruitment, attendance and retention over time, with Cores C and D. 4)Develop? and refine messages targeting a sub-study (Project 3) of the larger trial, and recruit volunteers for functional? MRI evaluation. This will include educating prospective volunteers and controls about the safety and value of? functional MRI neuro-imaging in lay terms. EC represents offer an innovative and potentially powerful? approach to compress morbidity in older adults on a large social scale, and a successful recruitment by this? Core would further demonstrate that this model has the potential to appeal to a diverse and sizable number? of older Americans.
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