GERIATRIC MENTAL HEALTH ACADEMIC AWARDS

The purpose of the proposed project is to prepare the Nominee to serve as an institutional resource in geriatric mental health research with ultimate responsibility for the development of a program of multidisciplinary research and consultation in geriatric psychiatry. Training activities undertaken by the Nominee would extend over a three year period of time and would include 1) formal course work and independent study in advanced quantitative research methods and in geriatric psychiatry and; 2) participation in on-going research projects addressing the epidemiology, assessment and treatment of mental disorder among the elderly. Training would be undertaken at the Columbia University School of Public Health's Division of Sociomedical Sciences (Barbara Dohrenwend, PhD, Head) and Division of Epidemiology (Psychiatric Epidemiology Training Project, Bruce Dohrenwend, PhD, Project Director), and the Columbia University Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology (Barry Gurland, MD, Director) and its research affiliate, the Institute of Psychiatry of London University. Overall supervision of the Nominee would be the responsibility of JoAnn Jamann, Dean of the School of Nursing with day to day supervision delegated to Dr. Gurland. The long term objective of the project is to foster a geriatric mental health research capacity at Columbia University and it's service networks through articulating the research resources at Columbia and its affiliates. This would include the development of geriatric mental health research resources within the School of Nursing's Division of Gerontological Nursing, Division of Psychiatric-Community Mental Health Nursing and planned doctoral program, and the drawing together of students and researchers from other disciplines and units of the University to form a multi-disciplinary program of research.