Pilot
Awards
Open Positions
Webinars & Workshops
Award
Opportunies
Caregiving During Crisis
The Emory University team has designed a fully online “Caregiving During Crisis” course to help informal caregivers of persons living with dementia to adapt to caregiving during the COVID-19 pandemic. The course focuses on three main topics: keeping you and your person safe, navigating the healthcare system, and managing home life with dementia. If you are caring for a person living with dementia, if you have a way to access the course online, and if you’d like more information about or want to see if you are eligible for the course, please email: caregiving.crisis@emory.edu
NIH Request for Information Regarding Use of Common Data Elements
The NIH has issued a Request for Information (RFI) regarding use of Common Data Elements (CDEs) in NIH-funded research, particularly, but not exclusively, in the context of COVID-19.
Pilot Awards
NIA COVID-19 Supplement Recipients
Principal Investigators: Sarah Berry, MD, MPH, Marcus Institute for Aging Research, Hebrew Senior Life; Vince Mor, PhD, Brown University School of Public Health
Drs. Berry and Mor were awarded a supplement to improve COVID-19 testing for underserved and vulnerable populations as part of the Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics (RADx) initiative, the RADx Underserved Populations (RADx-UP) program. This initiative will leverage the foundation of the IMPACT Collaboratory to establish IMPACT-COVID-19 (IMPACT-C), a collaborative dedicated to developing and evaluating SARS-CoV-2 testing strategies in highly vulnerable residents and health care workers of skilled nursing facilities. IMPACT-C will assemble the organizational, administrative, and expertise components necessary to swiftly conduct a rigorous vaccine trial, when available.
Principal Investigator: Ellen McCreedy, PhD, MPH, Brown University School of Public Health
Dr. McCreedy and her team will conduct a cluster randomized embedded pragmatic clinical trial (ePCT) by leveraging electronic health records of Bluestone Physician Services to test the effectiveness of a COVID-specific, advance care planning (ACP) intervention on documentation of care preferences among assisted living community (ALC) residents with AD/ADRD from 150 ALCs in 3 states.
Principal Investigator: Lewis Lipsitz, MD, Marcus Institute for Aging Research, Hebrew SeniorLife
Dr. Lipsitz and his team will evaluate the efficacy of a Massachusetts state-funded strategy to minimize the spread of COVID-19 among older adults and their care providers within Massachusetts NHs using multiple data sources. Efficacy will be measured over the 2-month intervention period among all residents in nursing homes (NHs) across Massachusetts compared to those in Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Vermont.
Principal Investigator: Joshua Chodosh, MD, MSHS, NYU Langone Health
Dr. Chodosh and his team will design and pilot test an intervention that leverages the COVID-19 antibody and PCR status of residents and staff to inform staff-residents care assignments to minimize COVID-19 transmission rates. The team will conduct the study in two New York City facilities with high minority and AD/ADRD representation and compare intervention units using this strategy with those that do not.
Open Positions
The Department of Human Development and Family Studies at the Pennsylvania State University invites applications for two faculty positions in Quantitative Methods in Behavioral Data Science. One position will be at the rank of assistant professor, and one will be open-rank. We seek candidates who are dedicated to our research mission and passionate about teaching in a world-class institution.
We are especially interested in candidates developing data science methods to understand developmental and change processes; to inform substantive theories; to support causal inferences; or to improve the design and implementation of intervention or data collection. We welcome applications from individuals who are developing innovative methods and models for understanding and predicting longitudinal processes across multiple systems (e.g., behavior, physiology), multiple levels of analysis (e.g., individuals, families, institutions), and/or multiple timescales (e.g., minutes, days, years), such as latent variable modeling, network and graph theoretic models, dynamic or dynamical systems models, machine learning, categorical data analysis, item response theory, panel methods for constructing counterfactuals, or simulation-based approaches.
The New England Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Center (GRECC) is seeking a full time Academic Clinician dedicated to the care of older adults. Responsibilities include working within a multidisciplinary leadership team, Identifying, developing and securing support for conducting and evaluating clinical demonstration projects (CDPs), and stewarding innovative Age-Friendly Healthcare programs within the New England GRECC. The New England GRECC is based at the VA Boston Healthcare System and the VA Bedford Healthcare System and supports care within the VA New England Healthcare (VISN 1). Eligible individuals must have a demonstrated history of prior grant funding for academic initiatives as well as leadership in quality improvement and/or clinical innovation. They must demonstrate a strong commitment to enhancing Veteran’s care and the ability to collaborate constructively within a large and dynamic healthcare system. Leadership experience in clinical research and/or geriatric education will also be highly valued. The New England GRECC has faculty affiliated with Harvard Medical School and Boston University School of Medicine. Interested candidates should send their CV and cover letter to Myriame Wortham at
Webinars & Workshops
2021 Annual Meeting of the Boston Roybal Center for Active Lifestyle Interventions
Monday, June 7th
3 pm - 4 pm ET
Angela Duckworth, PhD
Rosa Lee and Egbert Chang Professor, CEO & Founder of Character Lab, University of Pennsylvania
Despite rapid growth in empirical research on behavior change, modern science has yet to produce a coherent set of recommendations for individuals and organizations eager to align everyday actions with enduringly valued goals. We propose the process model of behavior change as a parsimonious framework for organizing strategies according to where they have their primary impact in the generation of behavioral impulses. To begin, individuals exist in objective situations, only certain features of which attract attention, which in turn leads to subjective appraisals, then finally give rise to response tendencies. Unhealthy habits develop when conflicting impulses are consistently resolved in favor of momentary temptations instead of valued goals. To change behavior for the better, we can strategically modify objective situations, where we pay attention, how we construct appraisals, and how we enact responses. Crucially, behavior change strategies can be initiated by the individual (i.e. self-control) or by others (e.g. a benevolent employer).
The presentation recordings and slides are now available from the RCCN Virtual Workshop Inclusion of Older Adults in Clinical Research!
The meeting included sessions on aspects of including older adults in clinical research including the Current Situation, Barriers - Real and Perceived, Making the Case, and Best Practices for Reaching Out to Colleagues
Selected presentation recordings from the workshop:
Award Opportunities
Two Supplement Awards to IMPACT Collaboratory Will Link Big Data and the Impact of COVID-19 on People Living with Dementia
The NIA IMPACT Collaboratory has been awarded two COVID-19 Supplements partnering with major retail pharmacies to create a massive monitoring system of the long-term safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccination on people with AD/ADRD.
These two studies are:
Monitoring Medicare Beneficiaries' Response to COVID vaccines (CVS Project)
This project established an active post-vaccination surveillance system of a large population to track and report safety and outcomes related to SARS-CoV-2 vaccine(s). Working jointly with CVS Health and the Medicare & Medicaid Resource Information Center (MedRIC) at Acumen, LLC, the project established a data infrastructure to monitor the effects of COVID-19 vaccines administered to Medicare beneficiaries by CVS across the country. Data transfers from the national retail pharmacy chain are merged with Medicare data. The resulting data base is analyzed to identify demographic, race/ethnicity, clinical (e.g., ADRD), and health care system factors associated with being vaccinated, estimate the rate of adverse events attributable to the vaccine and estimate breakthrough COVID illness among vaccinated Medicare beneficiaries. This program provides the basis for assessing mid- to long-term safety and efficacy of the different vaccines being distributed for use in the elderly population in the country.
Medicare Match for post-vaccination monitoring (Walgreens)
This project builds on the researchers’ partnership with CVS to establish a data infrastructure to monitor the effects of COVID-19 vaccines administered to Medicare beneficiaries by CVS across the country. The goal of this project is to add data from Walgreen’s 13,231,175 million Medicare beneficiary pharmacy customers to the existing infrastructure which will increase the research team’s capacity to track immediate and long term effects of vaccination on nearly half the population of Medicare beneficiaries.
The need for a larger study population is particularly important because those with ADRD already suffering from neurodegenerative diseases may be at greater risk of serious neurological adverse events of vaccines. In addition, the unknown potential for adverse events may result in high rates of incomplete vaccination (both shots) among older adults. Such uncertainty contributes to vaccine hesitancy and may result in large disparities in SARS-CoV-2 vaccination among racial/ethnic groups, for which disparities in seasonal influenza vaccination already exist.
To learn more about these studies, visit this page on Building Infrastructure Supplement Awards, and the press release from Brown University at this link.
Notice of Intent (NOI) to Publish a New Funding Opportunity Announcement for Upcoming IMPACT Pilot Grants
RFA Release | August 16, 2021
Letter of Intent due | September 17, 2021
IMPACT funds several one-year awards of pilot pragmatic clinical trials (ePCTs) that test non-pharmacological interventions embedded in health care system(s) for people living with Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) and AD-related dementias (ADRD) and their care partners. Under this mechanism, interventions must be linked to the needs of a health care system. More information on the IMPACT Pilot Grants Program can be found here.
The goal of the pilot projects is to generate the preliminary data necessary to design and conduct a future full-scale Stage IV effectiveness ePCT (based on the NIH Stage Model). The IMPACT Collaboratory will give preference to applications that address dementia care for populations traditionally marginalized or underrepresented in clinical trials and those that promote health equity. It is anticipated that Pilot Projects will be funded for up to $175,000 in direct costs for a maximum of 12-months.
Stay tuned for updates regarding the release of the RFA, an informational webinar and application deadline. If you have questions related to this funding opportunity, please contact IMPACTcollaboratory@hsl.harvard.edu. The IMPACT Collaboratory will share additional details as they become available on the website at www.IMPACTcollaboratory.org.
The Alzheimer's Association Request for Applications
Advancing Research on Care and Outcome Measurement
Letter of Intent due | May 5, 2021 at 5:00pm ET
Application Deadline | June 29, 2021
The NIA IMPACT Collaboratory is pleased to to share a new funding opportunity. In collaboration with LINC-AD (Leveraging an Interdisciplinary Consortium to Improve Care and Outcomes for Persons Living with Alzheimer’s and Dementia), the Alzheimer's Association, is currently accepting applications for the new Advancing Research on Care and Outcome Measurements (ARCOM) funding program. The goal of the program is to address gaps in care and outcome measurement and advance research efforts to ensure that care providers are implementing evidence-based practices (using measures to guide care provision) and achieving desired outcomes (using measures to assess outcomes). Work funded through ARCOM must directly advance research projects focused on development of new and/or validation of previously developed measures of care and outcomes where measurement gaps exist.
The Alzheimer’s Association anticipates funding up to 8 ACROM proposals for up to $250,000 total funding (direct and indirect costs) over a period of up to two years (minimum of 1 year).
To learn more about this funding opportunity, visit here.
Notice of Intent (NOI) to Publish a New Funding Opportunity Announcement for IMPACT Demonstration Projects
RFA Release: Expected February 2021
The NIA IMPACT Collaboratory is pleased to inform the community that the NIA IMPACT Collaboratory plans to publish a Request for Applications (RFA) for Demonstration Projects for large-scale embedded pragmatic clinical trials (ePCTs) testing the effectiveness of a care delivery intervention program in a health care system for people living with Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) and AD-related dementias (ADRD) and/or their care partners.
Under this mechanism, interventions must be linked to the needs of a health care system and powered to detect a significant difference in the primary outcome between trial arms. The goal of the demonstration projects is to generate evidence on effective care delivery practices that can be expanded and/or implemented in other systems.
The IMPACT Collaboratory will give preference to applications for Demonstration Projects that address dementia care for populations traditionally marginalized or underrepresented in clinical trials and those that promote health equity. It is anticipated that Demonstration Projects will be funded for up to $500,000 in direct costs for a maximum of 24-months.
The RFA is expected to be published in February 2021. Stay tuned for updates regarding the release of the RFA, an informational webinar and application deadline. If you have questions related to this funding opportunity, please contact IMPACTcollaboratory@hsl.harvard.edu. Additional details will be shared as they become available on the website at www.IMPACTcollaboratory.org.