Public Health Research

Funded Projects

Development of Culturally-Sensitive Messaging related to Cognition and Cognitive Impairment 
SIP 14-003

A major focus of CDC’s efforts to support the proposed actions of The Healthy Brain Initiative: The Public Health Road Map for State and National Partnerships, 2013–2018 Cdc-pdf[PDF-2.2M] and the nation’s Healthy People 2020 objectives related to older adults is to “educate and empower the nation.” To meet that challenge, CDC is supporting efforts to develop and disseminate science-based, culturally-relevant messages and strategies that promote awareness about cognition and cognitive impairment that will lead to increased detection of cognitive impairment, including Alzheimer’s disease.

In fiscal year 2014, CDC’s Healthy Aging Program initiated support to the University of Pennsylvania Prevention Research Center to assess perceptions about cognitive health and impairment among non-Hispanic white and African-American adults aged 50 or older living in the Philadelphia area. This work will help lead to the development, pilot-testing, and dissemination of timely public health messages for this population and examine the potential scaling of these findings to other populations. The messages will be aligned with the current state of the science, selected based on those most likely to resonate with the populations of interest, and be distributed through the most appropriate communication channels.

Systematic Literature Reviews

Caregiving Strategies

Identifying system-level caregiving strategies.
CDC’s Healthy Aging Program is supporting a project through the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) to conduct an international review of the literature to identify system-level caregiving strategies, such as care coordination, to promote health and quality of life and related outcomes of care recipients. The review will be consistent with The Guide to Community Prevention Services methodologies.