Building Community Capacity for Disability Prevention for Minority Elders Diversity Supplement II
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PROJECT SUMMARY The long-term goal of this second Diversity Supplement Award is to promote diversity in aging research and support Dr. Mayra Sánchez González’s pathway to an independent research career that aims to promote healthy aging and prevent disability in older adults with multiple chronic conditions. Although older adults from racial and ethnic minoritized backgrounds represent the fastest-growing segment of the aging US population, expected to be 34% of all older adults by 2040, they have less access to mental health care and disability prevention services, lagging well behind non-Latino Whites. Mental health illnesses, such as anxiety and depression, tend to follow a chronic episodic course that results in significant functional disability and negatively affects the quality of life. Despite successful acute treatment for late-life anxiety and depression, many older adults are at risk of symptom recurrence. Considering that older adults from racially and ethnically diverse backgrounds are at risk of experiencing a mental illness course characterized by severity, persistence, and recurrence, studying the effectiveness of maintenance interventions to prevent a relapse of late-life depression and anxiety symptoms is critical to reducing disability and improving quality of life. Unfortunately, the role of maintenance psychotherapies – interventions that seek to sustain recovery following acute treatment – in treating older adults is under-researched, particularly in non-White older adults. This project’s main objective is to understand the role of a maintenance intervention on mental illness symptom recurrence in a sample of racially and ethnically diverse older adults. I will use data from the parent grant, Positive Minds-Strong Bodies Enhanced (PMSB-E), to identify sociodemographic and clinical factors associated with accepting the PMSB-E maintenance sessions among intervention participants (Aim 1), to examine whether intervention participants who receive the maintenance sessions are less likely to experience a relapse or recurrence of mental health symptoms (Aim 2), conditional on accepting and receiving the maintenance sessions, identify who benefits and why using qualitative methods (Aim 3), and to adapt and pilot test the Positive Minds maintenance intervention for individuals with multiple chronic conditions (Aim 4). Dr. Sánchez González has formed a strong team of content experts in health disparities, disability, and psychological and behavioral interventions. Immersed in JHU and MGH’s rich training environments, Dr. Sánchez González will achieve the following career goals through dedicated mentorship, didactic experiences, and professional development opportunities: (1) develop expertise in advanced quantitative methods, (2) develop skills in qualitative methods, (3) develop skills in implementation and dissemination science, (4) bolster her publication profile, and (5) develop proficiency in grantsmanship. Completing this second Diversity Supplement proposal will provide additional time for training and research activities and will result in acquiring preliminary data for a K23 submission.
