It is well established that a pressing issue for the upcoming decades is ensuring that the large population of Older Americans, is able to function independently and maintain an acceptable quality of life. The urgency of this concern stems from the knowledge that the population of elderly is increasing and large numbers of older adults have difficulty completing life activities. In response to the need to develop infrastructures which are supportive of older adults, the University of Miami is proposing to establish a Center on Human Factors Engineering and Aging Research. The Center will encompass an integrated program of Human Factors and aging research, a plan for field intervention studies to evaluate the outcomes of the research, and a program to disseminate the information gained by the Center to government, community and corporate agencies and older adults. The overall goal of the Center is to develop strategies to enhance the quality of life and productivity of aging persons. The conceptual framework for the research program will be based on a human factors approach to person-environment transactions which involves identifying disparities between environment/task demands and the functional capabilities of older adult populations. The focus of the research project will be on practical problems encountered by older people in various arenas such as transportation, home and work. Specifically, the Center proposes three initial research projects, which will result in interventions such as a home safety training program, housing design guidelines, older driver training, and software and job design guidelines to be field tested. Outcome measures will include improvement in the performance of everyday activities, improvement in cognitive skills, reduced potential for accidents and injury and thus improved ability to live independently. The Center will have multiple performance sites and strong links to industry, government and community agencies as well as plans to organize workshops and other programs to disseminate the Center's information. The proposed Center is unique in terms of its emphasis on Human Factors Engineering, multidisciplinary team, and study populations which draw on the multitude of elderly persons and rich ethnic diversity of South Florida.
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| Salthouse, T A; Czaja, S J (2000) Structural constraints on process explanations in cognitive aging. Psychol Aging 15:44-55 |
| Smith, M W; Sharit, J; Czaja, S J (1999) Aging, motor control, and the performance of computer mouse tasks. Hum Factors 41:389-96 |
| Czaja, S J; Sharit, J (1998) Age differences in attitudes toward computers. J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci 53:P329-40 |
