Research Networks in Biodemography and Demography of Aging

描述（申请人提供）：老龄化与健康的研究需要多学科的知识、方法、思想和数据，为学科间的交叉交流提供了很大的机会。但是，交叉受精面临着许多挑战——跨学科交流问题，对老龄化领域的研究人员进行关于其他领域的交叉教学，以及促进来自不同领域的知名科学家之间的创新合作，以研究老龄化。该项目将通过以下具体目标发展研究网络来应对这些挑战：具体目标1：举办正式人口统计学和老龄化生物人口统计学培训讲习班，培训年轻和新的研究人员使用各种分析和定量方法研究老龄化问题。具体目标2：组织催化会议，以促进涉及几个广泛问题的老龄化跨学科合作研究-遗传学与行为和社会因素之间的相互作用，社会网络的理论和数据，以及将定量和群体遗传学和基因组学，进化和生态遗传学，流行病学和卫生政策的工作整合到老龄化研究中。具体目标3：组织高级讲习班/研讨会，汇集小组研究人员，利用各种工具，包括短期工作组会议，基于网络的研讨会和讲习班，以及其他基于网络的协作工具，集中关注老龄化研究中的特定问题和数据。培训讲习班向年轻和新的研究人员讲授有关衰老的最新科学工作，并提供与老牌研究人员的联系。催化会议，在其他领域的成功，提供了一个刺激的环境，一个小组探索和制定新的跨学科的想法。高级研讨会有望从催化会议中产生，并超越催化会议，允许对问题有实质性兴趣的研究人员详细研究协作工作的想法和计划。这些活动将加强对老龄化的研究，并按照《关于为老年行为和社会研究领域提供网络基础设施支持的FOA》的要求，在若干新兴领域开展合作研究。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Research on aging and health requires knowledge, methods, ideas and data from multiple disciplines and presents great opportunities for cross-fertilization between disciplines. But there are many challenges to cross-fertilization - communicating questions across disciplines, cross-teaching researchers in aging about other fields, and stimulating innovative collaborations between established scientists from different fields to work on aging. This project will address these challenges by developing research networks via the following specific aims: Specific Aim 1: Conduct training workshops in the formal demography and biodemography of aging to train young and new investigators in diverse analytical and quantitative approaches to aging. Specific Aim 2: Organize catalysis meetings to stimulate cross-disciplinary collaborative research on aging that deals with several broad questions - the interplay between genetics and behavioral and social factors, theories and data on social networks, and the integration into aging research of work on quantitative and population genetics and genomics, evolutionary and ecological genetics, epidemiology and health policy. Specific Aim 3: Organize advanced workshops/seminars to bring together small groups of researchers to focus intensively on particular questions and data in aging research, using a variety of tools including short working group meetings, web-based seminars and workshops, and other web-based collaborative tools. Training workshops teach young and new researchers about recent scientific work on aging and provide links to established investigators. Catalysis meetings, successful in other fields, provide a stimulating setting in which a small group explores and formulates new cross-disciplinary ideas. Advanced workshops are expected to emerge from catalysis meetings and go beyond them by allowing researchers with substantive interests in a problem to work through in detail ideas and plans for collaborative work. These activities will strengthen research on aging and launch collaborative research in several emerging areas as requested in the FOA on Network Infrastructure Support for Emercino Behavioral and Social Research Areas in Aoinc. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: This project will provide training in methods, knowledge and techniques from new, emerging and diverse fields (such as genomics, genetics, and network analysis) to young and established researchers in aging. By so doing the project will enhance aging research and promote new and novel scientific collaborations.