1998 Annual Report
Introduction
In August of 1996, the North Carolina General Assembly
approved funding for the creation of an Institute on Aging. The
new institute was to be placed under the general umbrella of
the University of North Carolina System, and be based on the
UNC campus at Chapel Hill, with an explicit mandate to extend
its reach throughout the state. Subsequently, the decision was
made to locate the Institute on Aging within the Division of
Health Affairs, along with a number of problem-focused
centers and institutes having pan-university responsibilities for
building interdisciplinary programs. In addition, a Statewide
Aging Advisory Committee was formed through which the
institute could bring into its overall program the views and
perspectives, as well as the active participation, of colleagues
in the aging field from our sister institutions of the UNC
System, as well as the Cooperative Extension Service, the
Community College System, and faculty with aging interests in
the private colleges and universities of the state.
The Institute on Aging will have separate divisions for
Public
Service, Educational Programs and Research. Among the
disciplines of faculty particpating in the new institute are the
social sciences, clinical medicine, epidemiology, the biology of
aging, education, law and social work.
The mission of the Institute on Aging is: to promote
collaborative applied and basic gerontological research and the
sharing of research information across the wide spectrum of
disciplines pertinent to the field of human aging; to translate
relevant theory and research-based knowledge into innovative
programs of interdisciplinary gerontological education and
practice; to provide state-of-the-art information to policy
makers, program managers, service providers, clinicians and
the general public; to ensure that research findings are
reflected in policy recommendations, professional practice,
and in the health and human services systems serving the
needs of older adults and their families.
The First Year of Full-Time Operation
There is a great deal of very positive news to report from
the
first year of the new Institute on Aging at the University of North
Carolina. This report is intended as a means of communicating
with a wide spectrum of persons and organizations throughout
North Carolina who are daily working to improve the services
and programs serving our older adult population, and who have
a great deal of interest in the course of development of the new
Institute on Aging. It is our intention to keep these various
constituencies well informed about the Institute and its
developmental progress. Certainly, without the widespread
support received from throughout the aging services
community of our state there would not have been the
opportunity to create this new Institute.
Important new program development efforts have been
launched this past year in education, public service and
research on the Chapel Hill campus and in association with
many other campuses within the UNC System.
New Efforts in Gerontological Education
As the new Institute began, it was obvious that there were
few
courses and formal curricula on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus,
other than in the Schools of Medicine, Social Work and
Nursing, having to do with gerontology and aging. Under the
leadership of Associate Director Peter R. Uhlenberg, Ph.D.,
Professor of Sociology, a comprehensive inventory of all
courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels on the
UNC-CH campus has been completed. From this information
base, we have begun to identify gaps and instructional needs
throughout the University with the plan for stimulating the
development of several entirely new courses in various
departments and schools during the coming year. Moreover,
we are actively encouraging those faculty currently teaching
courses in this field to strengthen and expand these existing
courses to ensure that students at every academic level with
these interests will have an outlet for these interests. We are
exploring the feasibility, in consultation with our colleagues on
other UNC System campuses, of offering a formal certificate
or other credential to students at the undergradute level who
accumulate sufficient courses under this rubric to have
achieved some level of specialization in the study of aging and
gerontological issues. We are hopeful that those UNC-CH
graduate departments which still require a minor for advanced
degrees will look upon the range of courses offered in this field
to meet these requirements and will encourage students with
these interests to pursue such a minor area of concentration at
the master’s degree level. As the number of courses and
faculty with these interests on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus
increases, it is likely that more of our master’s and doctoral
degree candidates will elect to study issues in the aging field in
meeting the thesis and dissertation requirements of their
degrees.
Distinguished Lecture Series on Aging
Also, as part of the Institute’s educational program,
a very
successful Distinguished Lecture Series in Aging, has been
launched with three events taking place this past year. These
lectures are being published and widely disseminated on both
state and national levels in order to call attention to the
existence of the new Institute and to underscore the level of
attention being brought to these important issues by the
Institute and its affiliated faculty and staff throughout the UNC
System. The lectures in this series have attracted well over
150 participants from across the state each time. Two of the
other campuses in the UNC System (East Carolina University
and UNC-Greensboro) have brought vans to Chapel Hill with
undergraduate and graduate students who share an interest in
these issues. The receptions which have followed these
events have enabled students and faculty, as well as members
of the general public, with interests in these issues to interact
and share their ideas about critically important issues in the
aging field. It is hoped that the wide distribution of the printed
versions of these lectures will further communicate the nature
of the Institute’s program of research, teaching and public
service activities.
Public Service Program
In the public service arena the Institute has moved quickly
to
establish a world wide web home page and has offered this
modality of information dissemination to aging organizations
around the state as a vehicle for communication among them,
particularly with respect to the discussion of common issues
faced by these aging service organizations. The home page
was initially developed by staff of the CARES Program of the
UNC School of Social Work, further developed by staff of the
Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research, and then
moved under the umbrella of the Institute itself. The address of
the Institute’s home page on the web is:
<www.aging.unc.edu>.
Leadership Change in Public Service Programs of the
Institute
A change in the leadership of our public service activities
has
taken place as Dr. Gary Nelson, Associate Professor of Social
Work at UNC-Chapel Hill, has been replaced by Dr. Jim
Mitchell, Professor of Sociology and Family Medicine at the
East Carolina University School of Medicine. Dr. Nelson
remains on the Operational Committee of the Institute, but has
taken a larger role in the new Jordan Institute for Families in the
School of Social Work. The Institute on Aging is fortunate in
having both playing major roles in its initiation. Although the
final details of the appointment of Jim Mitchell are yet to be
worked out, the outline of the agreement thus far discussed will
formally recognize what has been a major contribution of his to
the overall development of the Institute in this first year. Dr.
Mitchell will take the lead in establishing an expanded public
service program through which we hope to have regular and
helpful exchanges with a broad cross-section of agencies and
programs offering health and social services to older adults
throughout our state. We are working out the details for a
consultation service that will bring experts here in North
Carolina and throughout the nation into contact with key area
agency staff around topics of particular interest and
importance to aging services professionals.
This idea springs from two separate regional meetings,
one in
Greenville and one in Hickory, where Dr. Mitchell and Chapel
Hill colleagues met for extended discussions of the interests of
and common problems experienced by local aging program
administrators. These discussions proved to be especially
valuable and have served as the basis of plans the Institute
hopes to implement in the next couple of months for a regular
consultation and liaison service for aging agency leaders. In
addition, plans have been made to add to the Institute’s
Statewide Aging Advisory Committee (SAAC) several persons
identified through these types of meetings. Discussions with
area agencies on aging staff helped the Institute get a clearer
picture of the types of information and technical assistance
they would find helpful if provided by the Institute. Staff and
faculty of the Institute were pleased to hear so many
expressions of the need for careful research and evaluation on
concrete service delivery problems. Plans are being made to
continue these meetings, in these geographic areas and in
others throughout the state. The next series of meetings will
involve a planned agenda and a much more extended
discussion of particular issues in which it is hoped that
substantive experts from other UNC System campuses will be
involved.
As part of the Institute’s public service activities
in this initial
year, a series of developmental grants were offered to Area
Health Education Centers throughout the state on a
competitive basis in order to foster aging-related program
developments in the AHECs. This program yielded six
interesting proposals from five AHECs in Greensboro, Rocky
Mount, Winston-Salem, Greenville, and Asheville. It is hoped
that this sort of collaborative effort may be expanded in the
coming year by getting these projects off the ground earlier in
the year, and by working closely with AHEC staff to create
more extensive public service and health professional-targeted
efforts related to the health of older adults.
Finally, the Institute offered financial support to the
Summer
Institute on Aging, which was well-attended in July, and held
this year in Chapel Hill. The Institute believes that this annual
statewide gathering of aging program staff and interested
members of the general public serves as a useful gathering of
those who are most heavily invested in the improvement of
services and programs for our older adults throughout North
Carolina. The Institute is therefore very interested in continuing
to play a major role in the annual support of this valuable
conference.
Expanded Programs of Research on Aging
In December the Institute held the first of what is hoped
will be
annual research retreats through which the substantive
research interests and future directions among faculty affiliated
with the Institute were identified. This was an exhilarating
meeting during which several key areas were identified within
which UNC-Chapel Hill faculty have already demonstrated
national and international stature, while at the same time
representing key sets of problems being faced by older adults
in our state. These topics included the following areas of
current work being undertaken by our faculty, and for which
there are already several millions of dollars of external support
for our work:
aging and society (including the demography of aging and
intergenerational relationships)
disablement/functional status
patient care issues in aging (acute, post-acute, and long-term care)
health care outcomes in aging
planning and needs assessment for serving older adult populations
ethics and policy analysis (including end-of-life decision making)
the biology of aging
measurement in relation to aging issues:
functional status measurement
life history analysis
risk assessment
outcome assessment (including mortality risk prediction)
telemedicine and electronic information dissemination
stroke outcomes assessment and the predictors of placement
health-related quality of life (HRQL)
indicators of need
In order to bring into the web of activities of the Institute
the
active participation of colleagues from other UNC System
campuses, as well as the Community College System, the
Institute offered a program of small grants for younger faculty
and graduate students that would support developmental
projects in research, public service or education. These
awards were limited to $5,000 for faculty and $3,000 for
graduate students. A committee of four senior faculty reviewed
the proposals and awarded support to ten projects, six to junior
faculty and four to graduate students. Eight of these were to
faculty and graduate students at UNC-Chapel Hill; two were to
applicants from other UNC System campuses at ECU and
UNC-Greensboro. Applications were received from five UNC
System campuses in this initial competition. Because
proposals had to be merit-reviewed and decisions reached
within a week of their receipt, only UNC-Chapel Hill faculty
reviewers were employed. This next year, given the fact that
we will have more time to plan this aspect of our program, the
small grant program will attempt to increase the number of
applications from other UNC System campuses, involve
faculty from across the System in the review process, and
increase the number of project proposals received in the areas
of educational program development and public service.
Among the most exciting new developments during this initial
year of the Institute is the early success of the Institute in
submitting and having been funded for one of five national
awards from the National Institute on Aging in support of a
Resource Development Center in Minority Aging Research.
Under the leadership of Dr. Elizabeth Mutran, a medical
sociologist and post-doctoral fellowship-trained gerontologist
who is Professor of Health Behavior and Health Education in
the School of Public Health, a proposal was submitted in the
early spring of 1997 in collaboration with colleagues from North
Carolina Central University in Durham, Fayetteville State
University, and East Carolina University in Greenville. This
proposal outlined a number of minority-focused research and
development projects which not only would bring high quality
research expertise to key questions related to the health of
older minority populations in our state, but would strengthen
the research and scholarly abilities and experiences of faculty
at the participating institutions who share an interest in the field
of aging. The Institute’s proposal was highly regarded by those
evaluating its merit and this program of research will
commence as of October 1, 1997 with $500,000 of support per
year for five years.
Subsequent to the award of these funds the Institute has
submitted a minority supplement award request to support the
career development of a young investigator from Fayetteville
State University. If awarded, this would add an additional
$50,000 per year to the corpus for this program and relieve the
participating institution of a substantial burden of salary support
for this faculty member who has made a decision to focus his
career in the field of aging.
This level of success in the domain of competitive grant
funding at the outset of the Institute’s development is clearly a
reflection of the commitment of the new Institute to achieving
the highest standards of scientific excellence, while at the
same time reaching out to other sister institutions within our
state in an effort to build basic research and evaluation skills of
fundamental importance to the long-term development of a
statewide capacity for high quality research and public service
programs in North Carolina. We believe that this is a concrete
example of how the investment made a year ago has already
been more than doubled through the initial efforts of faculty
brought together under the Institute’s umbrella from four of
these collaborating institutions. In this sense, we see the initial
idea of a statewide Institute on Aging as having validity and
proven potential for future growth and development.
Leadership of the Institute During its Formative Period
The leadership and organizational structure of the Institute
is a
matter to which serious and sustained attention has been
given during its first year of full-time operations. Dr. Gordon H.
DeFriese, Professor of Social Medicine, Epidemiology and
Health Policy and Administration and Director of the Cecil G.
Sheps Center for Health Services Research, has been serving
as the Acting Director of the Institute. Dr. DeFriese served
previously (with Dr. Gary Nelson) as Co-Chair of the planning
initiative for the Institute, made possible through planning funds
appropriated in the last biennium. A search committee has
been formed, Chaired by Dr. William H. Campbell, Dean of the
UNC-CH School of Pharmacy, for the purpose of
recommending a permanent Director for the Institute. These
search processes can take a few months, but interviews are
scheduled to begin in the fall of 1997 with the first of several
candidates for this exciting position. It is expected that an
appointment can be announced sometime after the first of next
calendar year.
Two Associate Directors have been appointed, one for
Educational Programs and one for Public Service Programs.
The Institute is in the process of recruiting a full-time Associate
Director for Operations. Given the size and scope of the newly
funded Resource Center on Minority Aging Research
(RCMAR), Dr. Mutran will be designated Associate Director for
Minority Aging Programs. A position for an Associate Director
for Research has just been approved. A full-time business
manager has been appointed and a secretary is being hired.
Physical Location and Other Infrastructural Supports
for
the Work of the Institute
The University has provided adequate and attractive physical
space in University-owned buildings located on Airport Road off
the main UNC-CH campus, but within six blocks of the main
campus and conveniently connected to the T-1 computer lines
serving buildings on the campus periphery. Ample and free
parking is available for persons visiting the Institute from
outside Chapel Hill. The new space is located just across the
road from the well-known and established Cecil G. Sheps
Center for Health Services Research, which serves as a
source of many of the infrastructural supporting services a
new Institute finds essential to its early efforts, such as
computer and library support, well-equipped conference
rooms, etc. So, the University has clearly demonstrated its
strong commitment to this emerging area of emphasis on our
campus and we are feeling “well on our way” toward
developing the kind of relationship with this campus and our
sister campuses envisioned all along by those who sponsored
the initiation of the Institute.
The Institute welcomes inquiries from any and all persons
and
organizations in North Carolina having interests or
involvements in the field of aging, and from colleagues
throughout the nation who share interests in these exciting
activities in education, public service and research related to
the health and well-being of older adults.
Further inquiries should be addressed to:
Gordon H. DeFriese, Ph.D.
Professor and Acting Director
Institute on Aging
University of North Carolina
730 Airport Road, Campus Box 1030
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-1030
Telephone: (919) 966-0225
Fax: (919) 966-5764
email: gordon_defriese@unc.edu
Internet: www.aging.unc.edu
