Addressing global challenges for aging and dementia: NIA joins GEOHealth initiative

Announcement

Damali MARTIN, Program Director, Division of Neuroscience (DN). and John PHILLIPS, Chief, Population and Social Processes Branch, Division of Behavioral and Social Research (DBSR) discuss NIA’s participation in GEOHealth.

Climate change, air pollution, and pesticides are environmental and occupational hazards shared by all societies. But their impact is magnified many times over in developing nations where rapid growth in industrialization, car ownership, and urban lifestyles are colliding with insufficient research and public health infrastructure. This problem will intensify as the number of older adults and people living with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (AD/ADRD) in LMICs continues to grow. Addressing these challenges requires trained scientists who are experienced in large-scale environmental and occupational health analysis and well-versed in the socioeconomic and policy context affecting healthy aging interventions.

To this end, NIA is excited to join our NIH colleagues at the Fogarty International Center (FIC), National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Cancer Institute, and Office of Research on Women’s Health to support the Global Environmental and Occupational Health (GEOHealth) program. Led by FIC, GEOHealth works to build institutions and networks in developing countries for coordinated and collaborative environmental and occupational health research, data management, and training at the local, regional, and global levels. Current GEOHealth hubs are located in Southeast Asia, India, Africa, the Caribbean, and South America.

 

Excerpted from the NIA Research Blog, Addressing global challenges for aging and dementia.