The overall aim of this pilot project is to conduct comparative analyses and generate findings on the predictors of cognitive health among older individuals in Ghana and Malawi, two Sub-Saharan African countries at different levels of development, Ghana being low-middle-income country and Malawi a low-income country. Importantly, these findings will inform planned pilot data collection activities to test the Harmonized Cognitive Assessment Protocol  (HCAP) in both countries and the integration of HCAP in the nationally representative WHO SAGE survey in Ghana.

Historically underrepresented populations experience a disproportionate burden of age-related cognitive disorders compared to non-White populations. As a salient resource for coping in Black communities, spirituality may be associated with better brain health, yet research is limited, especially in this population. This study aims to examine: 1) associations between spirituality and cognition, 2) identify possible differences across racial groups and, 3) explore the role of spirituality as a moderator between AD blood biomarkers and cognition.

The proposed project draws on recent advances in bio-informational research, with an aim to investigate how a new type of measurement—called “epigenetic clocks”, which quantifies biological processes related to aging (i.e., biological age)—can better our understanding of individuals’ judgments and decisions. At this time, epigenetic clocks have been previously used in medical research to understand the aging process and human lifespan, and such measures have been shown to be better at capturing variability in biological aging processes than chronological age.

A growing proportion of individuals provide unpaid care to family members and friends (i.e., are family caregivers). Among younger individuals, an estimated 12.7 million young adults (ages 18-34) and 5.4 million youth (aged <18) are family caregivers. As the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has increased disability and comorbidities, it follows an increasing number of young adults and youths may undertake the role of family caregiver.

Diabetes exacts a profound societal cost in terms of morbidity, disability, and mortality. As climate change progresses and further magnifies the negative impacts of extreme outdoor temperatures and air pollution on health, there is urgency in the need for adaptable and personalized diabetes care.

More older adults in the United States are undergoing inpatient surgery than ever before. Older age is a risk factor for greater morbidity and mortality following surgery; therefore, improving the surgical care and outcomes of older adults warrants attention. In this proposal, we focus on one concerning adverse surgical event which is particularly threatening to the postoperative recovery of older adults— prolonged surgical time.

Changes in US lung allocation policies in 2005 and 2017 increased transplants among the sickest and oldest candidates on the waitlist. The impacts of these policy changes on health care utilization and quality of life are not known. Assessing hospital-free days (HFDs) among transplant recipients will provide a better assessment of the post-transplant survivorship experience than simple measures of mortality.

The proposed research will evaluate the relative influence of genomic, phenotypic, social attributes, and social context in shaping how individuals perceive other people’s race, to determine how genomic information is influencing societal norms of racial classification.

It is widely acknowledged that disability results in a permanent downward shift in worker’s incomes, and thus consumption. In other words, workers are not fully insured against these negative shocks in labor market productivity. There is much less attention to another form of disability, that of secondary infertility, which may affect women economically if they are partly dependent on male partners for economic support. In this project, I will test whether infertility materially impacts women’s economic well-being similarly to how worker disability affects their earnings.

Increased physical activity by walking further or more vigorously may delay the development of Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias (ADRD) and associated cognitive decline but reaching higher levels of activity and maintaining it as a long-term habit is difficult to do. This project will use concepts from behavioral science to create a mobility game that people at risk for developing ADRD can play in order to increase their levels of activity while having fun doing it.