Penn State requests two years of additional support for the renewal of its Exploratory Center on Health and Effective Functioning of Older Rural Populations. This center, named the Exploratory Center on Aging and Health in Rural America (CAHRA), will continue to promote interdisciplinary research on: l) the physical and psychological health of rural elders and their general well-being; 2) the effects of demographic change in rural populations on the elderly's well-being and on the organization of health care services, and 3) factors affecting the delivery and utilization of adequate and appropriate health care services to the rural elderly.
These aims refine CAHRA's goals specified in the original proposal. To accomplish this program CAHRA will: l) provide opportunities for researchers to form interdisciplinary research teams that will generate new research ideas and approaches; 2) foster a rural focus in existing research on aging and health; and 3) encourage the expansion of rural research programs to include aspects of aging and health. The center will continue to be organized around two components, the Administrative and Planning Core (APC) and the Small-Scale Grants Core (SGC). The APC will: l) provide integrative planning and leadership to focus faculty and research resources on CAHRA's goals; 2) promote the research recommendations from the long-range planning workshop; 3) ensure that the SGC program meets CAHRA's goals; 4) help pilot project principal investigators to develop proposals suitable for R01 grant applications; and 5) promote national visibility of CAHRA's research. Four new pilot project proposals and two pilot projects continued from the prior support period constitute the SGC. The APC will work to guarantee that each of these preliminary projects will culminate in R01 or P01 grant applications to NIA for research on aging and health in rural America.
