Six New Roybal Centers for Applied Gerontology Established by National Institute on Aging
The National Institute on Aging (NIA), part of the National Institutes
of Health (NIH), announced the establishment of six new Edward
R. Roybal Centers for Research on Applied Gerontology. The Centers at
the University of Indiana, Princeton University, Stanford University,
RAND, and the Oregon Health and Sciences University will
join the four existing Roybal Centers to conduct research on patient
management, well-being, how to forecast the effects of medical
breakthroughs, the effects of policy on the decisions people make
medically and economically, and new ways to use technology to measure
and provide health care.
Authorized by Congress in 1993 and named for former House Select
Committee on Aging Chair Edward R. Roybal, the Centers are designed
to move promising social and behavioral basic research findings
out of the laboratory and into programs, practices and policies
that will improve the lives of older people and the capacity of
society to adapt to societal aging. Established for 5 years, the
Centers will receive a total of $1.8 million in funding in their
first year.
“Building on a foundation of strong basic findings, this new group
of Roybal Centers has the potential to develop highly innovative
and practical solutions for a number of very real and pressing
problems. These include how to help make better medical and health-related
decisions and to develop a more accurate measure of quality of
life that could be used to measure the impact of clinical interventions
on people’s well-being,” said Richard Suzman, Ph.D.,
Associate Director of the NIA for Behavioral and Social Research.
The Centers, principal investigator, and focus are:
- University of Indiana, Christopher M. Callahan, M.D. Selected
for its extensive expertise in geriatric medicine, the
University of Indiana Center will develop tools for patient
management,
with a focus on physician and patient interaction.
- Princeton University, Daniel Kahneman, Ph.D. Princeton
will examine well-being by developing methods introduced by
Nobel Laureate Kahneman on introducing important psychological
and social components to measure well-being on a more effective
basis than traditional approaches.
- Stanford University, Alan Garber, Ph.D., M.D. The Stanford Roybal Center will apply
an emerging interest in better “emotional
regulation” with increasing age to the choices people make
when encountering medical and health-related decisions.
- RAND Institute, Dana Goldman, Ph.D. Goldman’s
group will study ways to forecast the effects of medical breakthroughs
on behaviors and decisions related to public and private health
expenditures. The Center will see how surveys on these issues
might be conducted by using the Internet.
- RAND Institute, Arie Kapteyn, Ph.D. This second
RAND Center, established at a different research group than Goldman’s
with funds largely from the NIH’s Office for Behavioral
and Social Science Research (OBSSR), will develop Internet tools
to examine the economic decisions older people make based on
their ability to understand risks and probability of events.
- Oregon Health Sciences University, Jeffrey Kaye, M.D.
Using new technologies and input from academics, health providers,
and community and industry leaders, Oregon will develop a unique
senior community from the ground up, one in which the activities
within this community can be studied unobtrusively to examine
the well-being of older people as they age.
The Roybal Centers are part of NIA’s Behavioral and Social
Research Program, which, along with basic biological and clinical
research, addresses issues affecting the health and well-being
of older people and their families. More information on these
programs, as well as consumer-oriented publications on healthy
aging, can be found on the NIA’s web site www.nia.nih.gov or by calling 1-800-222-2225. The NIA leads the federal effort
in supporting and conducting basic and clinical research on aging
and the special needs of older people.
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