Decades of leadership in the field of elder mistreatment research have earned UTHealth Houston its first grant from the prestigious Edward R. Roybal Centers for Translational Research in the Behavioral and Social Sciences of Aging program, funded by the National Institute on Aging.
The five-year, $5.3 million award to Cizik School of Nursing at UTHealth Houston will fund the creation of the multidisciplinary Roybal Center for Elder Mistreatment Intervention Research, the first Roybal center to focus on elder mistreatment. The National Institute on Aging is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Directing the center’s administrative core will be Carolyn Pickering, PhD, RN. Pickering is a professor at Cizik School of Nursing, the Isla Carroll Turner Chair in Gerontological Nursing, and a noted expert in dementia family caregiving.
Serving as principal investigators along with Pickering are Brad Cannell, PhD, MPH, and Ronald Acierno, PhD, who will direct the center’s behavioral intervention development core. Cannell, an associate professor in the Joan and Stanford Alexander Division of Geriatric and Palliative Medicine at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston, created the Detection of Elder Abuse Through Emergency Care Technicians (DETECT) screening tool. Acierno is a professor and vice chair of veteran affairs in the Louis A. Faillace, MD Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston and executive director of the UTHealth Houston Trauma and Resilience Center. Acierno was lead author on what is considered the seminal national elder mistreatment prevalence study published in 2010 in the American Journal of Public Health.
The estimated prevalence of elder mistreatment ranges from more than 15% for community-dwelling older adults up to 60% for those living with dementia and other neurodegenerative disorders. However, no evidence-based guidelines exist for prevention or intervention.
“Elder mistreatment is a complex phenomenon that results from many different factors,” Pickering said. “It can manifest as financial exploitation, neglect, self-neglect, physical abuse, psychological abuse, or sexual abuse.”
The new Roybal center will establish infrastructure and mentorship to support pilot studies exploring ways to reduce exposure to elder mistreatment and its mental and physical impacts on older adults and their caregivers. Goals include helping researchers progress through stages established by NIH for intervention development, increasing trained researchers in elder mistreatment interventions, and evaluating mechanisms and outcomes.
“A major innovation of this center is that our organizational structure and activities are intentionally designed to help overcome well-recognized barriers to elder mistreatment research,” Pickering said.
Identifying participants can be particularly difficult. The center will enable early-stage researchers to benefit from long-standing relationships UTHealth Houston scientists have built on multiple fronts.
For example, Pickering maintains a pool of hundreds of family caregivers who have previously participated in her NIH-funded research studies; co-investigator Jason Burnett collaborates regularly with Texas Department of Family and Protective Services through his work with Texas Elder Abuse Mistreatment (TEAM) program; co-investigator Melba Hernandez-Tejada leads a psychotherapy clinic specifically devoted to elder mistreatment.
Burnett is an associate professor at McGovern Medical School while Hernandez-Tejada is an associate professor in Faillace Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.
“We argue that while elder mistreatment is sometimes a criminal problem, it is always a clinical problem,” Pickering said. “It always accompanies physical and mental health concerns for both caregiver engaging in abuse/neglect & older adult care recipient.”
While specific research targeting elder mistreatment remains small field-wise; findings from related fields such as caregiving/trauma science may inform mechanism-based interventions' development—pilot researchers encouraged adapting interventions across disciplines during initial work focused solely upon elderly maltreatments—proposals currently under review would fund studies at UTHealth Houston & other area institutions supporting investigators new-to-field via human subjects safety panel led-by Burnett offering pre-review consultation/pilot projects alongside participant-reported outcomes advisory team led-by Hernandez-Tejada.
Clinical geriatrics leadership roots traced back-to-university’s Consortium-on-Aging establishment by Carmel Dyer joining medical school (2007), earlier founded nursing school’s Center-on-Aging (1987). Dyer passed away May 2021; earlier founded Elder Abuse/Mistreatment Institute @ Baylor College-of-Medicine career-started vision tangible progress clinical assessment/intervention education/research advocacy spanning over four decades plus: "Dr Dyer's leadership provided tangible progress clinical assessment/intervention education/research advocacy >40yrs," Aanand Naik said - serving Roybal-center activity leader-program sustainability-executive director @UTHealth-Houston-Institute-on-Aging/professor/chair Management Policy Community Health dept @UTHealth-Houston-School-of-Public-Health holding Nancy P Vincent F Guinee Distinguished Chair Uzi Micki Halevy Carmel Dyer Interprofessional Research Fellowship.
Six researchers @university-led/key roles <63elder-mistreatments-research-projects w/>$46M-funding-Roybal-grant follows recommendations s Engineering Medicine stating: "Research center based @UTHealth-Houston would accelerate field's advancement."
“We honor carrying-on elevating decades-long tradition innovation improving lives older-adults," Diane Santa Maria stated - dean-Cizik-School-Nursing-Jane Robert Cizik Distinguished Chair Huffington Foundation Endowed Chair Nursing Education Leadership focusing exploring drivers developing innovative measurable-results ensuring safe/high-quality-care elderly individuals."
Center receiving support from: UTHealth-Houston-Institute-on-Aging TEAM psychiatry department Career Development/Research Excellence Program Implementation Science Clinical Translational Sciences Stroke/Cerebrovascular Diseases Institutes representatives from Public Health school's executive committee:
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