We are excited to share three new awards across CDE’s research themes from our faculty affiliates. Congratulations to Mosi Adesina Ifatunji, who was awarded a supplemental NIH award for his research on health and mortality disparities among Native- and Foreign-born Blacks in the United States; affiliates Michal Engelman (PI) & Jen Dykema (co-investigator), along with Maichou Lor (co-PI), who were awarded Research Forward funding for their work on health and wellbeing among Wisconsin’s Hmong Community, and Lauren Schmitz, who was awarded an NIH RO1 grant to analyze population-based epigenetic and genetic data alongside detailed lifecourse social, contextual, and health data among families in Malawi.
Congratulations to Mosi Adesina Ifatunji, who was awarded a supplemental award under the CDHA P30 Center Grant (3P30AG017266-24S3; PI Jason Fletcher) “Disparities in the Health and Mortality of Native- and Foreign-born Blacks in the United States: Examining the Role of Racial Context.” “The goal of my research project will be to describe the relationship between the racial context of origin and recent residence in the relative health and mortality of native- and foreign-born Blacks in the United States (net: health behaviors, socioeconomic status, migrant selectivity),” Ifatunji described in the project abstract. Learn more about the project here.
Congratulations to Michal Engelman, Maichou Lor, & Jennifer Dykema for receiving the UW-Madison Research Forward award for their project “Diversity, Inclusion and Aging in the Midwest: Opportunities for New Directions with Wisconsin’s Hmong Community.” DIAMOND-Hmong is a collaborative project of UW-Madison and a Hmong community partner, the Wisconsin United Coalition of Mutual Assistance Associations (WUCMAA). The project focuses on older Hmong adults with the goal of identifying and addressing health inequities, an especially important focus as limited health and wellbeing research exists on Hmong-American populations. Engelman serves as the principal investigator, and Dykema as the co-investigator to the project. Learn more about the project here.
Congratulations to Lauren Schmitz for her NIA R01 grant “Adversity, Aging and ADRD Risk among the Global Poor: A Biosocial Lifecourse Approach.” Schmitz is a member of the Malawi Longitudinal Study of Families and Health team. This project is one of the longest standing publicly available longitudinal cohort studies on sub-Saharan Africa, providing unique insights into more than a decade of Malawi’s demographic, socioeconomic, and health conditions. “This will be the lowest-income country context for which population-based epigenetic and genetic data will be collected and available alongside detailed lifecourse social, contextual, and health data. To date, biosocial research severely underrepresents non-white populations and is almost exclusively in high-income countries, even though low- and middle-income countries comprise the vast majority of the global population. These data will allow us to investigate critical factors that are contributing to accelerated biological aging in low-income populations, and will yield generalizable evidence that can inform policy intervention for millions of older adults who live in similar contexts with mostly subsistence-agricultural economies and inadequate health systems” Schmitz shared.