The Center for Health Improvement of Minority Elderly

Project Summary Overall Component UCLA Center for Health Improvement for Minority Elders (CHIME) proposes continuation of a research and mentoring program continuously funded in 2002, that will contribute to the reduction in health disparities for minority elders by training minority faculty who will advance their careers by conducting minority aging research. We propose to continue our theme of “Developing, Adapting and Evaluating Interventions to Improve the Health of Minority Elders”, which incorporates elements of two of RFA-AG-23-026 research objectives: i) identify and develop solutions to eliminate health disparities and health inequities in the growing population of older adults, and ii) improve the health and well-being of older adults. CHIME has 6 specific aims: 1) to develop the research infrastructure needed to improve the health of minority elders through the development, implementation, and evaluation of community and health system interventions designed to mitigate health disparities which incorporates two of NIA's areas of scientific focus: identify and develop solutions to eliminate health disparities and health inequities in the growing population of older adults, and improve the health and well-being of older adults; 2) to conduct rigorous analyses of existing data sets to identify sociocultural factors, health care factors, and behavioral and biological level correlates of health disparities to inform the design of interventions or health policies to mitigate health disparities; 3) to contribute to the development, evaluation, and dissemination of measures that can be used to track health outcomes or measure critical social, behavioral, and economic predictors of the health and the health-care of minority elders; 4) to build on CHIME’s 20-year track record of successful academic advancement of minority faculty through mentorship and support of their conduct of independent research on the health of minority elders; 5) to broaden both existing and new partnerships with communities to expand the pool of potential minority research participants and the beneficiaries of the findings from both the research conducted under the auspices of CHIME and other funded research. 6) Continue our long-standing and highly successful partnership and collaboration with Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science (CDU), a HBCU, while also developing an additional partnership and collaboration with the University of California at Riverside (UCR), a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) with expertise in training Hispanic students and those from other under-represented groups. CHIME will address these aims through activities that are organized in a Leadership and Administration Core (LAC), a Research Education Component (REC), an Analysis Core (AnC), and a Community Liaison and Recruitment Core (CLRC). The LAC and REC in collaboration with the External Advisory Group will select pilot studies and organize the mentorship and development of RCMAR Scientists, CLRC will assist with recruitment and AnC will provide highly innovative methodological training for RCMAR Scientists.