Boston University Scholars in Quantitative Interdisciplinary Aging Research (BU-SQIAR)

About This Grant

SUMMARY Promoting healthy aging, preventing diseases that disproportionately affect older adults, and maximizing quality of life among older adults with major health conditions is a national priority. The complexity of aging— changing physiology, multimorbidity, and dynamic social and behavioral factors—requires interdisciplinary approaches, with outstanding scientists trained to integrate conceptual insights from multiple fields and make the most effective use of new data sources and computational tools. The proposed BU Scholars for Quantitative Interdisciplinary Aging Research (BU-SQIAR) T32 grant will prepare pre- and post-doctoral trainees embedded in all 6 departments of the Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH): Biostatistics; Community Health Sciences; Environmental Health; Epidemiology; Global Health; and Health Law, Policy, and Management. The BU-SQIAR program draws on the unique strengths of BUSPH to emphasize: (1) research on improving the health of older adults using primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention strategies; (2) rigorous evaluation of the exposome—defined as the comprehensive set of exposures across the life course in physical, chemical, social, psychological, and economic domains that shape healthy aging—and the capacity of modifiable features of the exposome to shift genetic risk; and (3) interdisciplinary methodological innovation related to causal inference, improving clinical trials, exploiting new data sources, reproducible research skills, and identifying programs and policies with largest population impacts. BU-SQIAR will complement a dedicated interdisciplinary seminar for all trainees with carefully curated coursework emphasizing aging and quantitative methods; individualized mentoring to develop strong independent research programs and launch successful research careers; and a rich array of co-curricular activities to ensure outstanding training in reproducible research as well as professional skills. All trainees will have mentors bridging multiple departments to encourage meaningful engagement on complex topics such as approaches to causal inference from alternative disciplinary traditions. This program will take advantage of BU’s breadth of scientific resources, including depth of expertise in the health of aging populations, exposome research, statistical methodology and study design, and a breadth of relevant data resources. As the number of aging-focused faculty members at BU has grown, so has the demand for training opportunities here: there is currently a very high unmet demand for a program like BU-SQIAR. We propose a 2-year training program with 3 incoming PhD students and 2 incoming postdoctoral fellows annually (10 training slots at steady state). BU- SQIAR will track a clearly defined set of benchmarks for trainee success, as a component of a comprehensive evaluation and continuous quality improvement program. By bringing together trainees from across disciplines for in-depth training on rigorous research methods to address healthy aging, our alumni will be prepared for high-impact research careers.