Dr. Elizabeth Olson (UNC Geography and Global Studies), with Mr. Martin Hunicutt (Duke Clinical Research Institute), has been approved for a $25,000 funding award by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) to support a project on Bookend Caregiving, or intergenerational families who rely on mutual caregiving between young people and older adults.
Dr. Olson and Mr. Hunicutt will use the funds provided through PCORI’s Pipeline to Proposal Awards program to build a partnership of individuals and groups who share a desire to advance patient-centered outcomes research focused on youth caregivers of older adults.
Pipeline to Proposal Awards enable individuals and groups that are not typically involved in clinical research to develop the means to develop community-led funding proposals focused on patient-centered comparative effectiveness research (CER). Established by the non-profit PCORI, the program funds help individuals or groups build community partnerships, develop research capacity, and hone a comparative effectiveness research question that could become the basis of a research funding proposal to submit to PCORI or other health research funders.
The funding will support the second tier of the Bookend Caregiving network, which seeks to raise awareness and develop research around issues related to intergenerational family caregiving of older adults. The network currently includes young adult and family caregivers, local and regional aging services representatives, school service professionals, and researchers from pediatric and geriatric medicine. The network will continue to work collaboratively in North Carolina communities, and in relationship with national and international networks, to understand the needs and experiences of youth caregiving families. Additional description of activities can be found here: https://www.pcori.org/research-results/2017/building-networks-comparative-research-youth-caregivers-and-older-adults-tier and on the project website: https://bookendcaregivers.web.unc.edu/
“The Pipeline to Proposal Awards program is a manifestation of PCORI’s commitment to the meaningful involvement of patients, caregivers, clinicians, and other stakeholders in all our research endeavors,” said Jean Slutsky, PA, MSPH, PCORI’s Chief Engagement and Dissemination Officer. “It provides support to those who may not otherwise have an opportunity to contribute to the field of comparative effectiveness research. We’re pleased to follow the awardees’ progress as they develop partnerships and begin to form research questions.”
PCORI is an independent, non-profit organization authorized by Congress in 2010 to fund comparative effectiveness research that will provide patients, their caregivers, and clinicians with the evidence needed to make better-informed health and healthcare decisions. PCORI is committed to seeking input from a broad range of stakeholders to guide its work.