Puerto Rico’s rapidly aging population faces significant challenges, including high rates of chronic illness, cognitive impairment, poverty, and limited healthcare infrastructure. These factors disproportionately affect older adults and their caregivers, highlighting the urgent need for a multidisciplinary, culturally informed research and care approach to improve health outcomes and service delivery.
Specific Aims:
- To develop a new multidisciplinary scientific team spanning Puerto Rico and the mainland U.S. focused on the clinical and service needs of older Puerto Ricans with chronic conditions and/or memory loss.
- To identify research gaps and priorities through literature review, stakeholder engagement, and listening sessions with community members and service providers.
- To establish new research directions and partnerships that will support future large-scale funding and collaborative studies.
The team includes multidisciplinary experts in social work, gerontology, public health, demography, epidemiology, neurology, psychiatry, disability and rehabilitation across Puerto Rico and the continental United States, along with community and service partners.
Team Building Activities include:
- Conduct a narrative review of the chronic care conditions of older Puerto Ricans
- Engagement of consultants: Consultants support team formation by facilitating collaboration across Puerto Rico and mainland partners, providing access to PREHCO data, and leading coordination efforts.
- Conduct listening sessions: Structured sessions are conducted with team members, community stakeholders, and older Puerto Ricans and caregivers to identify needs and refine research directions.
- Identify funding policies and mechanisms at the respective academic institutions and community agencies.