Faculty at the Center for Equity in Aging at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing partnered with researchers at University of Minnesota School of Public Health and Emory University Rollins School of Public Health to create StARS, the State Alzheimer’s Research Support Center. The initiative will create a new research support center for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD) to serve as a resource to support the evaluation of dementia care policies, programs, and practices that have potential to improve care coordination and quality that might be scaled for nationwide adoption.
Currently, nearly seven million Americans are living with Alzheimer’s and related dementias, and 11 million people are providing unpaid care for them, making ADRD one of the most pressing public health concerns facing the nation. There are many promising, successful programs at the state level; StARS will create a national data resource and interdisciplinary collaborative network to support the evaluation of such state-based programs’ and then assist in the dissemination of key learnings and best practices associated with better, more equitable care for patients and family care partners. Ultimately, StARS will address gaps in knowledge about what is working well at state and sub-state levels and foster greater innovation in dementia care, spur adoption of innovations, and enhance the overall well-being of people living with dementia and their caregivers.
StARS is funded by a $17 million grant from the National Institute on Aging and features a close collaboration between the University of Minnesota, Johns Hopkins University, and Emory University, among several other institutions. At the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, Professor Quincy Samus, PhD is co-principal investigator for the project.
“The StARS initiative will develop rich and exciting collaborations between states, community organizations and world-class academic institutions to transform and improve dementia care,” says Dr. Samus. “StARSs will serve as a resource to help states build and enhance data capabilities and infrastructure to evaluate the impact of innovative policies and practice. Ultimately, we hope to broadly disseminate learnings to support adoption and scale of effective programs, thus making them more accessible to those in need throughout the nation.”
Professor Quincy Samus, PhD, Associate Director for Innovation at the Center for Equity in Aging, will provide senior leadership for StARS. Professor Kali Thomas, PhD, MA, Associate Director of Health Services Research for the Center for Equity in Aging and newly installed Leonard and Helen R. Stulman Professor in Aging and Community Health, provides leadership on data acquisition and analysis. Professor Katherine Ornstein, PhD, MPH, Director of the Center for Equity in Aging, will lead activities to coordinate and support states’ dementia-care pilot projects, and Professor Hae Ra Han, PhD, RN, FAAN, Elsie M. Lawler Endowed Chair and core faculty in the Center for Equity in Aging, will lead the StARS’ cross-cutting health equity team. The Center for Equity in Aging seeks to create transformative knowledge to achieve equity and promote whole-person solutions across the lifespan that benefit older adults, caregivers and their communities.
StARS, the State Alzheimer’s Research Support Center will have four main functions:
- Establishing partnerships: Working with state and regional partners to identify dementia care programs, policies and data sources, and assisting in the development of collaborations between key providers within states.
- Supporting dementia-care pilot projects: Providing funding and support for up to 16 states to conduct pilot projects that assess the structure and outcomes of dementia care services.
- Building a statewide and nationwide data infrastructure: Linking and merging multiple data systems from various state and national sources, enabling comprehensive evaluation and comparison of dementia care services across states.
- Developing and implementing a dissemination strategy: Sharing StARS-generated data and information with key stakeholders.
“We know anecdotally that there are a lot of very good state and regional programs out there that are making a difference in the lives of people with Alzheimer’s and Alzheimer’s-related dementias and their caregivers. But unfortunately, policymakers, providers and researchers have lacked the information about these programs that would demonstrate their effectiveness and assist efforts to replicate and disseminate them in other communities,” says co-principal investigator Joseph Gaugler, PhD, from University of Minnesota School of Public Health. “By building the infrastructure to coordinate and centralize data, the goal of StARS is to foster innovation in dementia care, spur policy innovations to finance and expand successful programs, and enhance the overall well-being of people living with dementia and their caregivers.”eople living with dementia and their caregivers.”
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Located in Baltimore, the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing is a globally-recognized leader in nursing education, research, and practice. In U.S. News & World Report rankings, the school is No. 1 nationally for its DNP program and No. 2 for its master’s. In addition, JHSON is ranked as the No. 3 nursing school in the world by QS World University. The school is a seven-time recipient of the INSIGHT Into Diversity Health Professions Higher Education Excellence in Diversity (HEED) Award and a six-time Best School for Men in Nursing award recipient. For more information, visit www.nursing.jhu.edu.
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Sydnee Logan
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