Health Effects of Alcohol and Comorbidity in Older Adults

描述(由申请人提供)：本次续签申请以患者为中心的研究的职业中期研究人员奖(K24)将允许候选人有受保护的时间继续获得新的研究技能和想法，开发新的研究，并指导不同的受训者群体。以患者为中心的研究的直接目标是在以下领域扩大她对老年不健康饮酒者的研究计划：a)识别和测试潜在的 更简单和/或新颖的方法，以解决不同老年人口中的不健康饮酒问题；以及b)探索在感染艾滋病毒的成年人中与酒精有关的风险和需要考虑的因素。对于她在指导方面的近期目标，她希望继续将初级酒精调查人员带入老龄化研究，将初级老年调查人员带入酒精研究，包括高比例的少数族裔和女性调查人员。这项新提出的研究将建立在她目前工作的基础上，识别年龄较大的不健康饮酒者，并进行干预，以降低与饮酒和合并症相关的风险。这项工作将侧重于新的人群(例如，做临时工的西班牙裔老年人和感染艾滋病毒的老年人)，并采用新的招募和干预方法(例如，与社区组织合作开展的、由社区卫生工作者通过邮件和通过互联网提供短信支持的方法)。通过正在进行的和拟议的项目，她将了解解决不健康饮酒问题的行为方法，调整社区卫生工作者使用的既定行为方法，社区参与性研究方法，以及西班牙裔日间劳动人口。她还将了解老龄化、艾滋病毒和酒精使用的交集，以及感染艾滋病毒的老年人的风险和共病。她将拥有完全通过邮件进行干预的经验，还将调整基于网络的干预措施，以解决不健康的饮酒问题，招募参与者，并在老年人中使用和不使用短信支持的情况下进行在线SBI。所有拟议的项目都为受训者提供机会，候选人将继续使用结构化的方法进行指导，其中包括具体项目和职业建议，以及对其研究的技术和财政支持。从长远来看，候选人的目标是继续在与酒精和衰老相关的以患者为导向的研究中建立一个备受尊敬的项目，并指导和合作来自多个学科的研究人员，在不同的人群和不同的地点研究酒精和衰老。通过开展这项研究并指导其他人也这样做，她希望增加人们对老年人使用不健康酒精的兴趣和了解，目的是减少与酒精相关的负面后果，并改善老年人的功能和生活质量。

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.