News Release

New Funding for Research on "Closing the Gap on Minority Aging and Health Research"

September 23, 2004

Peggye Dilworth-Anderson, Director of the Center for Aging and Diversity at the Institute on Aging has been awarded a leadership grant from the National Institute on Aging (NIA) totaling $540,000 for five years to create new opportunities for research on minority health and aging. The title of the grant is "Closing the Gap on Minority Aging and Health Research".

This award supports the overall mission of the Center, which is to address through research and training, health disparities in later life, provide a forum in which to discuss and examine ethnic, racial and cultural variation in life course processes and disseminate research findings to the academic and lay community on the health of older diverse populations.

Funds from the grant will provide support to: 1) develop a research working group on minority aging and health; 2) expand the research training opportunities for post-doctoral fellows and junior faculty members in minority aging and health; 3) develop a research seminar series on ethnicity, culture, race and aging research; further develop a new course offering for graduate students across the UNC campus, particularly those in health related fields; and, 4) develop and maintain relationships with minority community-based organizations in rural and urban North Carolina to improve subject participation in research.

For more information on the Center for Aging and Diversity, please visit the web site at www.aging.unc.edu/cad/.