Columbia Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Alzheimer's Disease Disparities (CIRAD)
Grant
Overview
Affiliation
View All
Overview
description
LEADERSHIP AND ADMINISTRATIVE COMPONENT SUMMARY The Leadership and Administrative Core (LAC) will provide the organizational framework for the Columbia Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Alzheimer’s Disease Disparities (CIRAD). The goal of CIRAD is to provide a training, pilot funding, and mentoring infrastructure that leads to enduring careers and leadership in AD/ADRD research among early investigators from historically excluded backgrounds. The CIRAD network includes researchers at the four schools of the Columbia University Irving Medical Center including Physicians and Surgeons, Nursing, Public Health and Dental Medicine, mentors from the Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer’s Disease and Aging, the Columbia University Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (ADRC), the Columbia Butler Aging Center, and the New York State Psychiatric Institute. Over the next funding period, CIRAD will prioritize collaborative partnerships with regional Minority Serving Institutions such as the City University of New York and the State University of New York, and will maintain existing relationships SUNY Downstate, NYU, Weill Cornell Medical Center, Montefiore Medical Center and Albert Einstein College of Medicine, as well as other institutions around the country. CIRAD faculty, mentors, and scientists were active within collaborations with other NIA programs and centers during the first funding period. The LAC will provide the scientific and administrative leadership and infrastructure to: a) support training, a pilot studies program, community partnerships, and a mentoring program in ADRD research and in health disparities for early career scientists from underrepresented backgrounds; b) enhance and accelerate critically-needed ADRD disparities research at CUIMC, in the New York City area, and nationally, and c) support innovative, effective, and empirically-based techniques for recruiting and retaining minoritized and population-representative research participants, and dissemination of those techniques to other RCMARs and the ADRD research community; d) create partnerships and engage with the communities of New York City to enhance the relevance, success, and impact of ADRD research. The LAC will achieve its goals through the following specific aims: Aim 1: Provide innovative scientific leadership and administrative support for all CIRAD activities to ensure that the research focus on equity in ADRD is maintained, and serve as a resource for ongoing activities in research on ADRD disparities. Aim 2. Coordinate and support the integration of CIRAD Cores and leveraged resources in order to meet the training, research, and community engagement goals of the center. Aim 3. Support communication and dissemination of CIRAD activities within CUIMC, partner institutions in New York City, NIA, other RCMAR programs, and nationally. Aim 4. Evaluate CIRAD activities.
OVERALL SUMMARY This is a proposal to renew an Alzheimer's- related Resource Centers for Minority Aging Research (AD-RCMAR) called the Columbia University Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Alzheimer's Disease Disparities (CIRAD). The thematic focus of the CIRAD is biological, behavioral, sociocultural, and environmental mechanisms of ADRD inequalities, including risk and resilience factors, biomarkers, and caregiving. It is critical to identify pathways between structural and social systems of exposure and ADRD outcomes in order to design interventions to narrow disparities and reduce the population burden of cognitive impairment and dementia. Over the past 4.5 years, CIRAD has built an extensive network that includes Core Leaders, Scientists, mentors, and collaborators from the four schools of the Columbia University Irving Medical Center, the Columbia University Alzheimer's Disease Research Center (ADRC), the Columbia Butler Aging Center, the CTSA Community Engagement Core, and the New York State Psychiatric Institute. We have engaged Scientists and mentors from New York City based institutions such as the City University of New York and the State University of New York, NYU, Weill Cornell Medical Center, Montefiore Medical Center and Albert Einstein College of Medicine, as well as other institutions around the country. The CIRAD Core leadership team includes former RCMAR Scientists who are well known for community-engaged research on ADRD inequalities. The goal of CIRAD is to provide sustained mentoring and career development, support for pilot studies, training in health disparities, and interdisciplinary collaboration to CIRAD Scientists and to support and accelerate research on the mechanisms of ADRD disparities so that they can be narrowed or eliminated. We will achieve our goals through: Aim 1. To establish and support a Leadership and Administrative Core, Aim 2. To establish a Research Education Core that will support a program that engages and supports early-stage investigators from historically excluded backgrounds interested in an independent career in ADRD research, Aim 3. To provide analytic guidance and support via an Analysis Core, and Aim 4. To accelerate research on mechanisms of ADRD disparities.
