Center for Improving Care Delivery for the Aging (CICADA)
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Project Summary – Overall Receiving high-quality, equitable, accessible, affordable, and well-coordinated health care is fundamental to the health, wellbeing, function, and independence of older adults, but the current U.S. health care system is not organized to provide this care. Services are often inaccessible or unaffordable, with persistent structural barriers that perpetuate unequal access. There is a critical need to grow and support a well-trained scientific workforce to address these shortcomings and disseminate findings effectively. The Center for Improving Care Delivery for the Aging (CICADA), a Resource Center for Minority Aging Research (RCMAR) at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn), is dedicated to these objectives. In its first funding period, CICADA succeeded in developing a robust learning and longitudinal mentoring environment for 15 RCMAR Scientists from underrepresented and minoritized backgrounds. Our focus has been on health services research (HSR), an interdisciplinary scientific field that studies the most effective ways to organize, manage, finance, and deliver high-quality care; reduce medical errors; and improve health equity. HSR spans the investigation and discovery of gaps in evidence-based care delivery, the development of evidence-based interventions to address those gaps, and the study of factors that influence and promote the uptake and sustainment of evidence-based treatments into routine practice via implementation science. Taken together, HSR approaches strive to ensure that all aging adults receive high-quality, equitable, evidence- supported health care and maintain or improve their health and wellbeing as they age. HSR is particularly in need of concerted efforts to increase representation in its workforce. This has scientific and clinical costs, as underrepresented and minoritized researchers bring essential perspectives to help understand and address the sociocultural, economic, political, and environmental determinants of racial and ethnic inequities in health and health care. Developing a population-representative cadre of researchers and leaders who can address the challenges and inequities facing aging populations is an absolute priority. Based in Penn’s Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics (LDI), a cooperative venture that spans all 12 schools and centers at Penn, CICADA has offered exceptional training in quantitative and econometric methods and supported the next generation of researchers and mentors. In recognition of ongoing needs in the field, our renewal application seeks to continue and build upon these activities. The overall Specific Aims for CICADA are: (1) To enhance the diversity of the aging-focused research workforce by mentoring promising scientists from underrepresented and minoritized groups for careers dedicated to improving health care delivery and health equity for older adults; and (2) to develop and sustain infrastructure to promote science that improves the health, wellbeing, function, and independence of older adults—particularly minoritized older adults—through transformation in health care delivery, with the goal of achieving health equity.
