Center for Demography of Health and Aging

Project Summary This is a proposal for renewal of the Center for Demography of Health and Aging (CDHA) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. CDHA supports high-impact, innovative research and the production of multiple shared data resources that benefit the broader scientific community. It also facilitates career development for emerging scholars and enables investigators to pursue new scientific opportunities and collaborations. CDHA’s intellectual community brings together 121 affiliates from 30 departments across the social and health sciences who pursue research in five signature themes: (1) Aging trajectories and health disparities across the life course; (2) Biodemography; (3) Place, health, and aging; (4) Health policy and health services; and (5) Demography of dementia and cognition, a new theme and emerging area of research excellence for CDHA. These themes are a product of our traditional strengths, a growing number of affiliates who bring both breadth and depth of expertise to the study of aging and health, and a vision for impactful future research contributions. CDHA’s research has evolved jointly with the growth of the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study and multiple other locally-led major population-based surveys as well as new studies centering NIH’s Health Disparity Priority Populations. CDHA is an autonomous research unit within the College of Letters & Science. It is supported by a well-developed research infrastructure in administration, computing facilities and data library, and dissemination capacity. CDHA’s Administrative Core (A) provides governance and administrative support and coordination for the Center as a whole. The Program Development Core (B) supports faculty, staff, and research assistants engaged in pilot research projects with a track record of generating substantial subsequent NIA support. It puts a particular emphasis on career development and mentorship for emerging scholars, as well as on supporting innovation in population-based aging research. The Communication and Dissemination Core (C) manages CDHA’s website and multiple digital, print, email and social media platforms to communicate CDHA activities and disseminate research findings and opportunities to internal and external affiliates and diverse audiences in academia, policy, and the public sphere. The External Network Core (D) develops innovative research networks within and beyond CDHA by organizing conferences, workshops, and seminars on critical themes; sponsoring novel modes of local data dissemination and new data user training; and pursuing focused outreach and professional development activities. Finally, the Remote Data Enclave Core (F) supports the analysis of restricted-use data resources under secure conditions and integrates with a state-of-the art Federal Statistical Research Data Center facility on the UW-Madison campus.