Goals
The goals of the Center for Healthy Population Aging (CHEPA) are:
- Serve as a Center of Excellence for integrated interdisciplinary studies of aging and health in Hispanic populations in the United States and the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean where immigrants have their origin or background.
- Be a world leader in longitudinal population-based studies of aging and health in Hispanic populations. Our intent is to exchange technical expertise, best practices and knowledge on producing representative data, sharing data, and using data to generate innovative research on aging of Hispanics.
- Provide an environment that promotes excellence and innovation in Hispanic population aging research, education, and clinical care.
- Empower faculty and scholars to engage and form collaborations to promote innovative interdisciplinary research to advance Hispanic aging and health.
- Mentor future generations of investigators from multiple disciplines to become leaders in the areas of research, education, and clinical care for aging Hispanics.
Background & Significance
Compared to non-Hispanic groups, U.S. Hispanics/Latinos are more likely to experience age-related chronic diseases and functional loss over their lifetime. These patterns, combined with a longer life expectancy, implies that Hispanic populations spend more years of their adult life with chronic diseases or with functional or cognitive impairment. The life course of individuals, however, with socioeconomic conditions, specific exposures in their work and living context, and their individual health behaviors, result in both risk and protective factors for old age health.
Thus, a focus on U.S. Hispanics and their old age health and function with a life course perspective is both timely and critical to deepen our understanding of all aging. Many Hispanic families in the United States are part of a long tradition of international migration, belong to migration networks and have deep roots in cultural norms of their countries of origin or background. Thus, to gain better understanding of how healthy aging occurs in these populations, our Center leverages established collaborations and conducts studies on aging in Latin America and the Caribbean.