Dr. Zahodne’s research focuses on cognitive and brain aging, Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD), and racial disparities in ADRD. The overall aim of her research program is to understand how psychosocial experiences influence late-life cognitive trajectories and the expression of neurodegenerative disease.
Dr. Weir’s research interests include the measurement of health-related quality of life; the use of cost-effectiveness measures in health policy and medical decision-making; the role of supplemental health insurance in the Medicare population; the effects of health, gender, and marital status on economic well-being in retirement; and the effects of early-life experience on longevity and health at older ages. He has directed the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) since 2007 and organizes MiCDA’s HRS Partner Studies Network.
Dr. Webster’s research focuses on social relations across the life course and highlights how social ties can serve as a resource across various age groups and in particular during later life.
Dr. Sonnega conducts research on the social contextual determinants of work, health and well-being within a multidisciplinary life course. Her current work examines both health and work with a goal of informing policies that can positively affect both.
Dr. Smith applies life course/lifespan theory to the study of health and well-being in late life. Much of her research focuses on tracing life course predictors and pathways of different trajectories of functional maintenance, change, and survival. She serves as a co-investigator on the Health and Retirement Study.
Dr. Ryan’s research investigates individual and contextual influences on psychological well-being, physical health, and cognition as adults age. She has extensive experience developing, implementing and harmonizing over the life course new measures for studies of older adults.
Dr. McNally’s research focuses on aging and life course issues and on methodological approaches to the improvement and enhancement of secondary research data. He is currently working on innovative tools and approaches to allow more efficient access to restricted data in a manner that maximizes both efficiency and subject confidentiality. He currently leads the NACDA Program on Aging, a data archive distributing studies on health and the aging life course.
Dr. Ehrlich is a clinician-scientist whose research on vision impairment cross-cuts population health and health services research. He has an interest in the health and disability trajectories of older adults with visual and multisensory impairments. He conducts research on low vision and vision rehabilitation; aging and vision; and the epidemiology of eye disease. As a co-investigator on the National Health and Aging Trends Study, he has collaborated on the design of a set of vision tests for use by interviewers in the home. He is also one of the PIs of the Longitudinal Study of Health and Ageing in Kenya (LOSHAK) project.
Dr. Clarke’s research interests center around the role of neighborhood built environments for health. Using population-based survey data linked to secondary data sources, she has investigated the importance of neighborhood social and built environments for disability, mobility and cognitive function and has identified inequalities by life course social position and residential location.
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.