Administrative Supplement to the OAIC Pepper Center Coordinating Center
Funded Grant
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We wish to advantage of 2 new key opportunities that could significantly enhance achievement of the overall goals of the OIAC Coordinating Center (OAIC CC) and 2 key, unexpected administrative needs. Project 1) Develop, test and implement an innovative set of tools to perform Integrative Data Analysis (IDA) for combining and analyzing independent data sets across the OAIC network An over-arching goal of the OAIC CC is to build collaborations between OAICs that unlock synergy. Each of the OAICs has many small/medium-sized completed studies relevant to the OAIC theme, and that have measured key domains of physical function. Combining these studies could provide large, powerful databases for answering critical questions not possible with individual studies. However, this is currently not possible because different measurement instruments are often used across centers and across studies. This project overcomes this critical limitation by taking advantage of 2 newly available technologies and an ongoing study. IDA is a set of strategies in which two or more independent data sets which contain measures addressing similar domains but using different measurement instruments are combined into one and then statistically analyzed. The proposed project is timely because it leverages an ongoing clinical study to validate new procedures for harmonizing measures of physical and cognitive function across 20 Pepper center studies. The resources created by the project will significantly enhance collaboration across the OAIC program network, benefiting researchers at all OAICs, and can be disseminated to other NIA center programs. Project 2) Develop a robust, interactive database of OAIC Program accomplishments that will automatically be updated via an efficient, streamlined, electronic annual reporting process. It is widely believed that the NIA-funded Pepper Center program has been highly productive. However, there is no means of assessing the overall effectiveness of the Pepper Center, or of ‘cataloging’ its impressive accomplishments. This project will take advantage of new open-source technology to efficiently develop a robust, comprehensive, searchable, interactive database of past accomplishments. It will also develop a streamlined electronic Annual Directory Report template, and link it to the new OAIC database so that it is automatically updated each year. Achieving the goals of this project will reduce administrative burden for sites, facilitate NIA review of performance of centers, and create an annually updated database of OAIC accomplishments, projects, publications, and outcomes, and facilitate collaborations between centers and investigators across NIA programs. This application also requests support for 2 key, unexpected administrative needs that have arisen: 1) Increase in funding amount for the annual OAIC CC Multi-center pilot project. 2) Support for additional Pepper Centers that will soon be added to the OAIC network.
