Key Personnel

Core Director:
Robert Weech-Maldonado, PhD
Professor & L.R. Jordan Endowed Chair
University of Alabama at Birmingham

Core Co-Director:
Virginia Howard, PhD
Professor
Department of Epidemiology
University of Alabama at Birmingham

Specific Aims

The Deep South Resource Center for Minority Aging Research (RCMAR) focuses and conducts research on health problems that are particularly prevalent among older African Americans and for which disparities in health between older African Americans and Whites have been identified, especially among rural older African Americans. As such, the overall purpose of the Deep South RCMAR is to reduce health disparities between African American and White older adults in the region of the country where the majority of older African Americans (AAs) live and health disparities have been particularly persistent. The ultimate goal will be to eliminate such disparities. The proposed new Core D (Analysis Core-AnC) will support the activities of the Deep South RCMAR in the areas of measurement and secondary data analysis.

There is a growing need for the development of culturally informed and scientifically valid measurement tools with a focus on older African Americans in urban and rural settings. Similarly, there is a significant need for secondary data analysis that can inform the development and evaluation of interventions to address aging health disparities issues in the South. Core D (Analysis Core-AnC) will leverage existing expertise, data resources, and infrastructure at our four partnering institutions (Morehouse School of Medicine, Tuskegee University, the University of Alabama, and the University of Alabama at Birmingham) to enhance the capacity of the Deep South RCMAR to conduct research in the areas of measurement and secondary data analysis.

The specific aims of Core D (Analysis Core-AnC) are to:

1. Identify, catalog, and distribute culturally informed and scientifically valid epidemiological, behavioral, and social measurement tools with a focus on older African Americans in rural settings.
2. Conduct secondary data analyses using sociobehavioral, economic, clinical, and genetic data with the goal of informing the development and evaluation of interventions to address health disparities among older African Americans in the Deep South.
3. Work collaboratively with the Investigator Development Core (IDC) and the Community Liaison Core (CLC), to train and mentor scholars in measurement techniques and the analysis of secondary data.
4. Work collaboratively with the IDC, to facilitate linkage of scholars with methodological, biostatistical, and analytical resources.
5. Collaborate with the RCMAR Coordinating Center in the dissemination of culturally informed measures and secondary data analysis techniques relevant to minority aging.

Other Personnel

• Kathryn Burgio, PhD, UAB PI
• John C. Higginbotham, UA IDC Investigator
• Patricia Sawyer, PhD, UAB Research Advisor
• Mona Fouad, MD, UAB IDC Co-Director
• Ann Smith, MPH, UAB Training Manager
• Roberta Troy, PhD, Tuskegee IDC Investigator
• Virginia Howard, PhD
• Meredith Kilgore, PhD
• Richard Kennedy, MD, PhD

Mailing Address:

University of Alabama at Birmingham
Center for Aging
CH19 201
1720 2nd Ave S
Birmingham, AL 35294-2041