Health Effects of Alcohol and Comorbidity in Older Adults

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This renewal application for a Mid-Career Investigator Award in Patient-Oriented Research (K24) will allow the candidate protected time to continue to obtain new research skills and ideas, to develop new research and to mentor a diverse group of trainees. The immediate objectives in patient-oriented research are to extend her program of research in older unhealthy drinkers in the following areas: a) identifying and testing potentially simpler and/or novel ways to address unhealthy drinking among diverse older populations; and b) exploring alcohol-related risks and factors to consider among adults aging with HIV. For her immediate objectives in mentorship, she wishes to continue to bring junior alcohol investigators into aging research and junior aging investigators into alcohol research including high proportions of minority and women investigators. The new research proposed will build on her current work identifying older unhealthy drinkers and intervening to reduce risks associated with alcohol use and comorbidity. This work will focus on new populations (e.g., older Hispanics who are day laborers, and older adults with HIV) and employ new recruitment and intervention approaches (e.g., those conducted in partnership with a community organization and delivered by community health workers, via the mail, and via the internet with text messaging support). Through the ongoing and proposed projects she will learn about behavioral methods to address unhealthy alcohol use, adapting established behavioral methods for use by community health workers, community participatory research methods, and the Hispanic day labor population. She will also learn about the intersection of aging, HIV and alcohol use, risks and comorbidities among older adults with HIV. She will have experience conducting interventions entirely by mail, and also adapting web-based interventions addressing unhealthy alcohol use, recruiting participants and conducting online SBI with and without text messaging support among older adults. Opportunities for trainees are available for all proposed projects and the candidate will continue to use a structured approach to mentoring that includes project-specific and career advice, and technical and financial support for their research. In the long term, the candidate aims to continue to build a well-respected program in patient-oriented research related to alcohol and aging and to mentor and collaborate with investigators from multiple disciplines to study alcohol and aging among diverse populations and in diverse sites. In conducting this research and mentoring others to do the same, she hopes to increase interest in, and understanding of unhealthy alcohol use in older adults, with the aim of reducing alcohol-associated negative consequences and improving function and quality of life in older adults.