For the past 10 years, our UCLA and Charles Drew University of Medicine and Science scientists have worked in partnership with community leaders in aging on community-based projects aimed at improving the health and quality of life of minority seniors. With appreciation of our complementary expertise, our academic-community partnerships are based in deep mutual respect and a shared vision for designing and implementing research aimed at improving the health and well-being of minority seniors and eliminating health disparities. Together we have built strong relationships grounded in trust and mutual respect not only between our academic based scientists and our vast network of community partners, but also between our team and several valuable NIH-funded centers including Project EXPORT, the UCLA Claude D. Pepper Older Adults Independence Center, the USC/UCLA Center on Biodemography and Population Health, and more recently, the NIA-funded L.A. Community-Academic Partnership for Research in Aging (L.A. CAPRA) Center and the UCLA Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI). As documented in the progress report of this application enumerating the manuscripts, grants, and careers CHIME has launched, our diverse CHIME team knows how to successfully collaborate in a bi-directional manner to deploy research projects and mentor the next generation of minority aging scientists. The overall goal of CHIME is to contribute to the reduction of health disparities affecting African-American, Latino and other minority elders by training and mentoring minority junior faculty who will advance their academic and research careers by conducting research on minority elderly populations in the greater Los Angeles Area. The CLC provides an integral role in achieving this goal and consists of a team of academic based scientists and community leaders who work together to achieve the following specific aims: 1) facilitate recruitment of minority seniors for CHIME-supported research projects; 2) increase the scientific knowledge of the most effective protocols for recruiting, enrolling, and retaining minority seniors into research studies utilizing state of the art measures of biological markers of health; 3) develop and test new protocols for community-based collection of biological markers of health among minority seniors; 4) and disseminate findings and research advances most relevant to our community partners to both scientific and lay communities.
The mission of the Investigator Development Core (IDC) is to develop future leaders in diversity aging research, focused in the area of CHIME's theme. Developing, Adapting and Evaluating Interventions to Improve the Health of Minority Elders. The IDC will provide mentoring, training and research support for junior and mid-career investigators to help them develop and sustain careers in diversity aging social, behavioral, and clinical research. The specific aims of the IDC are to: 1) Identify and recruit candidates who have demonstrated research potential and specific interest in diversity aging research that is consistent with CHIME'S research theme and/or advances the field of measurement among minority elders; 2) Select at least 3 outstanding junior and midcareer faculty to receive 1-year pilot studies with matching funds from the UCLA CTSI to fund pilot studies at a level of $40,000; 3) Provide intensive individual mentorship and a broad array of educational and infrastructural resources from the RCMAR, UCLA CTSI, and other NIA funded centers to enable CHIME Scholars to successfully complete their research, present and publish their work and ultimately obtain independent research funding; 4) Closely monitor the progress of CHIME Scholars in partnership with the National Coordinating Center using a standardized program of progress reports, mentorship committee meetings and research progress review by the CHIME Executive Committee (EC). The proposed pilot investigators for the first year include: 1) Dr. Luisa Blanco, a Latina economist who aims to use existing data and focus groups to determine factors explaining non-participation in the financial sector (e.g., no use of banking services) among older Latinos and African Americans and assess the impact of financial exclusion on health. This work will inform interventions to improve health among these populations by improving access to financial institutions; 2) Dr. Sarah Choi, a Korean-American nurse who aims to conduct focus groups to refine and assess feasibility of a diabetes self-care program tailored for Korean immigrant older adults through cultural adaptation and integration of spousal support. This work will lead to further testing an intervention to improve self-care of older diabetic Korean immigrants; 3) Dr. Homero del Pino, a Latino social scientist who aims to conduct interviews to understand the nature of family support among those in recovery from alcohol use disorders and whether family support differs among gay and heterosexual and younger and older Latino men. This work will provide the basis for developing alcohol use disorders prevention and intervention programs for older Latino men.
