The overall theme of the Center is "to understand and modify multiple pathways of functional decline." The Duke Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center (Pepper Center) is based in the Duke Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development, an all-university program with strong multidisciplinary affiliated programs such as the Durham VA GRECC, the RAND/Hartford Interdisciplinary Geriatric Research Center, the Duke Institute for Genomic Sciences and Policy, the Duke Clinical Research Institute, the Duke Center for Living, Trajectories of Aging and Care Center, and the Stedman Nutrition and Metabolism Center. This rich milieu includes 126 faculty as Senior Fellows of the Aging Center and over 21 million dollars of research germane to our center goals.
Over the past fifteen years, the Duke Pepper Center has been at the forefront of geriatric research and training focused on the development of interventions to improve the functional status of older adults and the support of research that identifies risk factors predictive of functional decline. The Duke Pepper Center originally began its funding as a Geriatric Research and Training Center (GRTC) in 1991. The GRTC was originally funded with three research cores and support for junior faculty and pilot projects, which reflects the organization of the current OAIC structure. One year later, Duke was awarded a Pepper Center and, at the direction of the National Institute on Aging, the two programs were combined into one. Initial Pepper Center support focused on the development of promising interventions to promote the independence of older Americans and faculty development. Since then, the Duke OAIC has produced an impressive portfolio of relevant research and innovations in faculty development.
The specific goals of the Duke Pepper Center are:
1) To support and enhance research related to our Center theme of exploring modifiable pathways to functional decline;
2) To train investigators in the methodologies needed for competence in mechanistic, translational, and outcomes research aimed at exploring modifiable pathways to functional decline;
3) To identify and nurture promising new and transitioning investigators who have an interest in research aimed at modifying functional decline in later life.