ITHACA, N.Y. -- How can communication between physicians and their elderly patients be improved? How can community service agencies better help families with depressed older relatives? How can psychotherapy and physical therapy be united to help older adults suffering simultaneously from back pain and depression? A new center at Cornell University will address these kinds of problems with innovative applied research projects.

The Cornell Institute for Translational Research on Aging (CITRA) is funded with $1.9 million from the National Institute of Aging (NIA), one of four Edward R. Roybal Centers funded nationwide this year. A collaboration of the fields of social science, clinical research and mental health, the institute embraces social scientists from Cornell's Ithaca campus, research clinicians in geriatric medicine at the Division of Geriatrics and Gerontology at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University in Manhattan, and researchers at the Psychiatric Division of the Cornell Institute for Geriatric Psychiatry in Westchester County, N.Y.

"CITRA creates a unique link among faculty members interested in aging at three of Cornell's campuses in New York state. These research collaborators will be informed by human service agencies in New York City to ensure that our efforts are relevant to real world problems. We will test the interventions in New York City, one of the most ethnically and economically diverse living laboratories we could hope for," says Karl Pillemer, the principal investigator of the new grant and director of CITRA. Pillemer is a professor of human development at Cornell who for the past 10 years has directed the Cornell Gerontology Research Institute.

Pillemer notes that CITRA will focus on social support and depression; extreme social isolation, self-neglect and health outcomes; family relationships as sources of support and stress; practitioner--patient communication to promote improved health outcomes; measurements of social integration and isolation; and social integration and isolation in minority populations.

"There are hundreds of studies that show the association of social support of older people with mortality, recovery from specific illnesses, mood and quality of life," says Elaine Wethington, Cornell professor of human development and a CITRA co-director. "The new center will apply these research findings to actual problems older people experience."

Co-directing CITRA with Pillemer and Wethington are Mark Lachs, M.D., associate professor of medicine, co-chief of the Division of Geriatrics and Gerontology at Weill Cornell and director of Cornell's Center for Aging Research and Clinical Care, and Martha Bruce, associate research professor of sociology in psychiatry at Weill Cornell's Westchester Division.

"The new collaboration is particularly exciting because Dr. Lachs and our other colleagues at Weill Cornell have built programs with deep and substantive community links to social service agencies that serve disenfranchised older people in New York City," says Pillemer. A major partner in CITRA is Council of Senior Centers and Services, the professional organization for New York's senior service providers.

"In addition, the Division of Geriatrics and Gerontology's ambulatory geriatric medicine practice shares space with a not-for-profit social service agency that last year provided support to more than 9,000 older adults, 85 percent of whom live below the poverty line," notes Lachs. "Further, our Weill Cornell House Call Program serves many homebound patients. The new center speaks to NIA's recognition of the track record of outstanding research in aging on both campuses and how multidisciplinary collaboration has the potential to help many older people."

"This is one of the most exciting Cornell medical school-Ithaca collaborations under way," said Lisa Staiano-Coico, Cornell vice provost for medical affairs and executive director of the Tri-Institutional Research Program (TIRP). TIRP encompasses Cornell, with its Ithaca campus and Weill Cornell Medical College in Manhattan, and Rockefeller University and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, both in New York City.

Related World Wide Web sites: The following sites provide additional information on this news release.

o Cornell Gerontology Research Institute: http://www.blcc.cornell.edu/cagri/

o Council of Senior Centers and Services of New York City Inc: http://www.cscs-ny.org/

o The Wright Center on Aging: http://www.cornellaging.org/patient/wright.html

o Weill Cornell's House Call Program http://www.cornellaging.org/patient/housecall.html