Michigan Center for Urban African American Aging

a MiCDA Research Project Description

Investigators: James S. Jackson, Toni Antonucci, Mary Haan, Harold W. Neighbors, Robert J. Taylor

Funding: National Institute on Aging

Year 8's Non competing renewal for the Michigan Center for Urban African American Aging Research (MCUAAAR) at the University of Michigan and Wayne State University. The overall objective of this proposed resource Center is to foster high quality scholarly and empirical training, research, and interventions focused upon health promotion and health among older racial and ethnic minority populations. This application builds upon the work and expertise of faculty and students in these two state institutions to empirically investigate African American health inequalities over the life-course. We have been fortunate in developing a knowledgeable group of research personnel and attracting to each university a large number of multi-ethnic faculty and graduate students with interests in the study of aging and human development in black and other minority populations. We propose to continue the MCUAAAR as an administrative, training, and scientific research organization among the University of Michigan's Program for Research on Black Americans (PRBA) and Life-Course Development (LCD) at the Institute for Social Research, School of Nursing, School of Public Health, the Institute of Gerontology, School of Nursing and Urban Studies Center at Wayne State University, and community based organizations (CBO) in the greater Detroit Metropolitan area. This proposed minority resource center builds on other cooperative research and administrative arrangements between UM, WSU and community based organizations. The proposed resource center will contain four interacting components: 1) the Administrative Core will provide administrative support, facilitate intellectual interchange, and provide overall coordination within the proposed Center and with other university units and community health service sites; 2) the Community Liaison Core will strengthen existing community research and service relationships as well as provide sources of cooperating community respondents for the proposed pilot research and intervention efforts; 3) the Investigator Development Core will identify, select, and mentor multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural investigators interested in research and interventions on the health of minority elders; and, 4) the Measurement Core will serve as a training and research focal point and assume leadership in refining and honing the research interests of all the investigators, but especially young investigators conducting the pilot studies. Thus, the proposed MCUAAAR will provide a comprehensive mix of established and new pilot methodologies, a broad scope of proposed culturally sensitive research and intervention activities, and a multi-disciplinary and multi-ethnic team of established researchers and appropriately mentored early investigators.