The Center for Research on Health and Aging tests and builds evidence about how older adults can prevent disability and maintain health and examines how the health care system can address the health needs of older adults.

By 2030, one in every five Americans will be 65 or older. Most Americans that age have at least one chronic health condition. Learning how to prevent disability and improve the health of older adults will improve their quality of life and reduce U.S. health care costs.

CRHA is part of the Institute for Health Research and Policy housed at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The center achieves its research goals in partnership with researchers throughout the United States and with the counsel and support of health care professionals and agencies that serve older adults, such as the Chicago Department of Senior Services. View our list of partners [1].

Thomas Prohaska [2] and Susan Hughes [3], professors of community health sciences, co-direct the center.

Researchers in CRHA are working to improve the health of older adults by:

• Disseminating Fit and Strong! [4], an evidence-based, award-winning [5] exercise program they developed and tested for persons with osteoarthritis, nationally.
• Examining how state funding affects the ability of older adults to maintain their independence [6]
• Identifying ways to increase walking among sedentary older adults [7]
• Studying how social factors affect the development of Alzheimer’s> [8] disease in hopes of ultimately finding ways to prevent or delay this debilitating brain disorder

As a part of the University of Illinois at Chicago, CRHA supports the development of new investigators through the National Institute on Aging-funded Gerontological Public Health Training Program [9] and pilot grants offered by the Midwest Roybal Center for Health Promotion and Behavior Change [10], also funded by the NIA.