Dr. Choi’s research focuses on the implications of family availability for healthcare and healthcare costs for older adults. She is currently examining the influence of family resources on care utilization among older adults with dementia and the role of local contextual factors in health differences at older ages between the US and England.
Dr. Bynum’s research focuses on the assessment of healthcare delivery for older adults using national U.S. Medicare healthcare data linked to other datasets. She has successfully led interdisciplinary teams to answer questions about the performance of the health system and the complex drivers of quality and costs, especially for older adults nearing the end of life or with Alzheimer’s disease.
Dr. Birditt’s research focuses on the negative aspects of relationships, stress, and the implications of relationships and stress for health and well-being across the life span. She is particularly interested in understanding how relationships differentially influence health and well-being depending on the context of stress. Most of her projects involve examining individuals and dyads either over time and or within families.
Dr. Bakulski’s research focuses on the genetics of mental and cognitive health. She also has experience with heavy metals exposure assessment, particularly biomarkers of cumulative lead exposure. Dr. Bakulski’s current research integrates and applies multiple genome-wide measures to understand disease risk. In addition, she studies the interactions between multiple pollutant exposures and genetics in aging populations on the risk of cognitive decline.
Dr. Ajrouch’s research focuses on aging, health, immigration and family in the United Statues and the Middle East; social networks over the life course; and Arab American identity and well-being. Currently, she is working with a multidisciplinary team of researchers to study Alzheimer’s Disease and related dementias among Arab Americans and directs the Michigan Center for Contextual Factors in Alzheimer’s Disease.
Dr. Ware conducts high throughput statistical analysis of genomic data to study disparities by in psychiatric outcomes by race and sex. She also explores gene-environment interactions as determinants of chronic disease.
Dr. Faul’s scholarly interests are at the intersection of epidemiology, biodemography, and aging. She is currently collaborating on a grant to identify gene-by-environment interactions and their influence on later life cognitive decline and is co-leading a study to characterize disparities in Alzheimer’s disease risk through analysis of polygenic risk and other epidemiologic factors. She is a co-investigator on the Health and Retirement Study and Harmonized Cognitive Assessment Protocol and has led the development of a workshop to train social scientists on the use of genomic data.
Dr. Freedman has published extensively on the topics of population aging, disability trends and long-term care and has investigated the connections among disability, time use and wellbeing in later life. She has co-led the National Health and Aging Trends Study and the National Study of Caregiving since their inception and has served as an Associate Director of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Through these efforts she has been instrumental in disseminating new measures to study disability and care needs of older adults.