Center on Population Health and Aging

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The Center on Population Health and Aging (CPHA) will provide a synergistic environment supporting research on the challenges of a growing and diverse older population. CPHA's specific aims are to: 1) encourage innovative collaborative research on the health and well-being of the older population; 2) address opportunities to develop interdisciplinary research, 3) provide mechanisms for scientific exchange and investigator development, and 4) provide a cost-effective setting to support CPHA researchers. These aims lay the basis for a sustained, yet dynamic interdisciplinary approach to research on the older population's health and well-being - one in which the population sciences play a central role. CPHA is committed to investigator development, an essential piece for the sustainability of the proposed program. CPHA's signature themes encompass areas of scientific excellence, new opportunities for cutting-edge research, and key topic areas outlined in the RFA. These themes are: 1) the interrelationships among SES, race-ethnicity and health; 2) trends and differences in chronic disease and disability; 3) biodemographie approaches to aging and health; 4) work and family perspectives on health and well-being, and 5) living arrangements and care of the frail elderly. CPHA is the outcome of collaboration among 5 multidisciplinary research centers at Penn State, the Population Research Institute, the Center for Health Care and Policy Research, the Gerontology Center, the Center for Developmental and Health Genetics, and the Center for Human Development and Family Research in Diverse Contexts. Inter-center collaboration enhances CPHA's ability to carry out its mission of encouraging scientific crossfertilization among the traditional population sciences and between the population sciences and fields such as behavioral genetics, human development, nursing, health policy, minority aging, gerontology, and biobehavioral health. Collaboration is essential in establishing lines of communication to a diverse scientific community. Inter-center collaboration also provides a means to leverage outstanding infrastmcmral resources, bringing them to bear in pilot project research that leads to sustained programmatic development on the demography of aging.