Research Education Core (REC) The goal of the Chicago Asian RCMAR ? Research and Education Core (REC) is to increase the number of successful interdisciplinary researchers from underrepresented populations prepared to conduct translational trauma and resilience research focusing on Asian American older adults. The Center in conjunction with the REC will provide an enriched environment that develops Scholars who: 1) understand the biological, social- cultural, psychological, and behavioral sciences with a specific emphasis on knowledge about mechanisms of action underlying trauma and related outcomes at the individual or population level, focusing on Asian elders; and 2) can conduct innovative pilot research that forms the basis for future minority aging research, ultimately designed to improve the lives of older persons and the capacity of institutions to adapt to the needs of our graying society. To achieve this goal, the REC will be fully coordinated with the Administrative Core and accomplish these specific aims: 1) Build research capacity of a diverse group of scholars focused on translational trauma and resilience research and collaborative efforts with established research scientists; 2) Mentor and train RCMAR scholars in a nurturing, collaborative, and interdisciplinary environment that encourages scholar development in collaboration with colleagues and mentors; 3) Solicit and select up to 20 scholars over 5 years to conduct mechanistic, behavioral, and social aspects of trauma and resilience research; 4) Track and evaluate success of Scholars to develop new lines of research using an iterative evaluation process; and 5) Build institutional sustainability so this RCMAR training supports partnerships and creates a pipeline of new and continued research to build the science and practice of trauma-informed care. To achieve the successful Scholar development and related successful, innovative pilot research, the REC will implement a 2-year training program with these inter-related components: Formal Training, Pilot Grant/Publication Skills, Grantsmanship Skills, and a Community/Health Policy Experience. The 2-year training program, which will contain the 1-year pilot project, will: 1) allow our RCMAR Scholars the time to not only learn interconnected content that is relevant to their own pilot but also to the broader field; 2) increase structured mentored time to hone career development, grantsmanship, and manuscript skills; and 3) increase the professional, peer, and community partner networks to which Scholars are connected. Such elements of our training program are tailored to our REC leader's decades-long experience mentoring minority and underrepresented trainees and faculty across the science workforce pipeline. A final innovative aspect of our REC and Center is that we have assembled and made available one of the largest repositories of large datasets on Asian populations health outcomes for scholar pilot research.
Research Education Core Aging research suffers from a lack of diversity both in populations-studied and investigators who conduct research. The field of trauma and resilience research is significantly underdeveloped, and demographic shifts in the U.S. population reveal a need to examine aging issues in historically underserved, and exponentially growing, populations, particularly Asian older adults. Immigrant populations, particularly those from Asian countries, experience high levels of trauma yet hold varying levels of resilience which impact health outcomes. Our Chicago Asian RCMAR aims to address this lack of research focus and the workforce to conduct such research both on U.S. Asian populations and especially older adults.
