Michigan Center for Urban African American Aging Research

描述（由申请人提供）：具体目标代表了先前RCMAR努力的系统延续。具体来说，密歇根城市非裔美国人老龄化研究中心（MCUAAAR）的使命是产生能够减少健康差距和改善健康的知识。为了完成这一使命，MCUAAAR追求两个目标：(1)增加训练有素的非裔美国人老龄化研究人员的数量；(2)将更多的非裔美国老年人纳入健康差异研究。为了实现这两个目标，延续申请拟探索三个具体目标：1)招募和指导15名新的老年与健康研究领域的青年学者；2)加强对少数民族和种族人群，特别是非洲裔美国人老年人健康和健康促进的重要研究；3)利用大型MCUAAAR参与者注册表，扩大对非裔美国老年人在健康领域的招募和保留的研究。除此之外，目标1和目标2是由美国国立卫生研究院资助的研究（Ginther et al, 2011）推动的，该研究报告称，来自黑人科学家的资助申请获得资助的可能性比来自白人研究人员的申请低10个百分点；实际上，这一差距意味着白人获得认可的可能性大约是黑人的两倍。目标3认识到，需要采用复杂的社会/行为方法来了解老年非裔美国人之间日益扩大的死亡率、疾病和健康差距。在整个培训过程中，MCUAAAR的学者将可以无限制地访问参与者注册表，这是一个近十年来遵循基于社区的参与模式建立的研究库，目前有1685名自愿的少数族裔受访者。该项目的意义直接植根于三个主要因素：克服关键障碍，提高科学知识，推进老龄化研究领域。MCUAAAR项目的创新性体现在三个显著特征上：当前范例的转变、新颖的方法和精炼的概念。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The specific aims represent a systematic continuation of prior RCMAR efforts. Specifically the mission of the Michigan Center for Urban African American Aging Research (MCUAAAR) is to generate knowledge that will reduce health disparities and improve health. To fulfill this mission, MCUAAAR pursues twin goals of: (1) increasing the number of highly trained African American aging researchers; and, (2) including more elderly African American subjects in health disparities research. To achieve these two goals, the continuation application proposes to explore three specific aims: 1) To recruit and mentor 15 new junior scholars into the area of aging and health research; 2) To increase important research on health and health promotion among Older Adults of ethnic and racial populations, especially African Americans; and, 3) To extend research on the recruitment and retention of African American elders in health by utilizing the large MCUAAAR Participant Registry. Among other things, Aims 1 and 2 are motivated by the NIH-funded study (Ginther et al, 2011), which reported that grant applications from black scientists were 10 percentage points less likely to win grants than were applications from white investigators; in practical terms, this gap means that whites are about twice as likely as blacks to win approval. Aim 3 recognizes that a sophisticated social/behavioral approach is required to understand the growing mortality, disease and health disparities among older African Americans. Throughout their training, MCUAAAR scholars will have: unlimited access to the Participant Registry, a research pool of currently 1685 willing minority respondents built over nearly a decade following a Community Based Participatory Model. The significance of this project is directly rooted in three major factors: overcoming critical barriers, improving scientific knowledge, and advancing the field of aging research. The project innovativeness of MCUAAAR resides in three distinctive features: shifts in current paradigms, novel approaches, and refined concepts.