Columbia Center for Active Life
of Minority Elders (CALME)

A RCMAR has been established at Columbia University, funded by the National Institute on Aging. The RCMAR is intended to meet its objective by:

• increasing learning and mentoring relationship between experienced researchers and researcher
  without previous funded research on minority health and aging issues;

• increasing the research skills and experience of minority faculty at either majority or traditionally minority based institutions who may not have had opportunities for conducting minority health and aging research;

• increasing the cultural awareness, community development techniques and methodological skills of majority and minority researchers who have limited familiarity with minority populations or with behavioral science epidemiological research skills in conducting research in minority populations;

• supporting research on understanding and reducing health status and access differentials by funding pilot studies which have a high probability of resulting in subsequent independent investigator awards, involving minority researchers as principal investigators or major co-investigators;

• creating an infrastructure using already tested models for accessing older minority individuals to seek their participation in biomedical, social and behavioral research on aging;

• increasing and disseminating knowledge about and experience with gaining access to and maintaining populations of various minority group members for aging research; and

• creating culturally sensitive strategies and measurement tools for use in older minority populations for aging research.The Columbia Center for the Active Life of Minority Elders has been established in the Northern part of Manhattan, in the center of two contiguous large minorities communities: Harlem and Washington Heights and Inwood.

Last Updated:
8/2/2007