Communication and Dissemination Core

REVISED ABSTRACT Communication and Dissemination Core (Core C) The Carolina Center for Population Aging and Health (CCPAH) has become a major resource for social and health scientists at UNC Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) who produce cutting-edge aging and related health and social-economic research. In the five years since its founding, CCPAH-supported data collection projects funded by the National Institute on Aging have flourished and thousands of researchers around the world are using them to publish high-impact papers. The CCPAH Pilot Project Core has funded a range of projects that are in the process of generating more grant and publication activity. Newly hired faculty at UNC-CH, who have arrived with great ideas and energy, have added additional momentum to the CCPAH. And our expansion of CCPAH to external affiliates brings about the potential for the center to have even further reach. In this next stage of growth in the CCPAH’s life cycle, it is both important and necessary to more effectively communicate and disseminate the activities and achievements of CCPAH so that the center’s influence can be amplified beyond its current reach. As such, the purpose of the Communication and Dissemination Core is to communicate and disseminate activities and achievements of CCPAH across multiple audiences (e.g., disciplines, investigators in different career stages, policymakers, and the public), with the goal of making CCPAH’s reach as impactful as possible. We will do so using both straightforward and innovative tools and with core attention to making CCPAH’s impact both academically powerful and publicly broad. We will do so by working on and accomplishing four specific aims. First, we will develop, maintain, and monitor the communication infrastructure of CCPAH, including the center website, affiliate listserv, newsletter, YouTube channel, and social media accounts. Second, we will identify and cultivate relationships with academic and nonacademic audiences across disciplines, career stages, and institutions, as well as with policymakers and the general public. Third, we will provide information for CCPAH affiliates and assist affiliates with compliance of CCPAH-supported projects with regard to the Data Management and Sharing Policy mandated by the National Institutes of Health. Finally, we will facilitate and provide support for the publication of a special issue of a journal highlighting innovative research from CCPAH’s major population aging and health data collection projects. All told, accomplishment of these aims will greatly facilitate the communication of CCPAH activities, opportunities, and resources to broad and different audiences and will help ensure that CCPAH research activities are well disseminated, documented, and compliant with NIH policies. We are committed to making CCPAH services widely available to internal and external affiliates and believe that our efforts will help our affiliates develop important connections outside of CCPAH and academia and promote our work to broad audiences.