Falk College strives to achieve excellence in education not only through good teaching but also through participation in active research. Our students benefit by learning from researchers who are working at the cutting-edge of knowledge, within well-equipped laboratories, and in projects that are both domestic and abroad. We encourage both undergraduates and graduate engagement to achieve not only a rewarding educational experience but also enhanced career opportunities upon graduation. Learn more about the different types of research awards.
Extramural AwardIntergenerational Solidarity with Digital Communication among Korean Adult Children and Older Parents
Using a dyad-centered approach, the proposed research aims to (1) uncover dyadic profiles of intergenerational solidarity with digital communication in Korean older parent-adult child pairs; and (2) examine how these dyadic profiles are associated with mental health within generational pairs. . .
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2020-2021 SU CUSE GrantIntergenerational Transmission of Cognitive Impairment in Later Life
Alzheimer’s Disease and related forms of dementia are considered one of the nation’s greatest social, medical and fiscal challenges because of the toll it takes on families, the individuals afflicted, and the health care system. Since dementia has a strong basis in biological (including genetic), socio-economic, behavioral, and psychological traits that are shared by family members, it is important to understand the familial etiology of dementia-related impairments, not only to determine the strength of transmission, but also to establish whether family risk factors are remediable through behavioral change and other interventions.
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Extramural AwardDeveloping an Instrument to Assess Intergenerational Digital Communication by Older Adults: Expanding the Solidarity Model
The purpose of this project is to develop a reliable and valid instrument that measures the use and efficacy of various forms of intergenerational digital communication and integrate those measures within the intergenerational solidarity inventory, the gold standard for measuring intergenerational family relationships. The researchers incorporate these new forms of communication into the intergenerational solidarity paradigm and its measurement tool by conceptualizing and empirically developing a new dimension of solidarity labelled “digital solidarity.”
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Extramural AwardIntergenerational Antecedents of Care to Older Adults Approaching the End of Life With and Without Dementia
In this project, researchers examine vulnerability of older adults in relation to the care-careers of their adult children over the family life cycle. Results will inform theory about how and when children respond to their parents’ early investments in them. Goals of the research are to: (1) link early transfers of valued resources of time, money, and emotion to rates of change in the amount of care adult children provide to their vulnerable older parents; (2) test a novel methodological approach—the “countdown model”—that uses time-to-death to represent global vulnerability that triggers the delivery of care to older parents; and (3) identify whether care to older parents is more strongly associated with time-to-death from Alzheimer’s disease and other dementia-related causes compared to other causes.
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2018-2019 SU CUSE GrantCause of Death, Longevity, and Career Statistical Characteristics among Former NFL Players: An Empirical Analysis using Categorical and Survival Models
The present research seeks to determine the relationships between on-field attributes/events, longevity, and cause of death among former NFL players. As the present NFL player concussion reporting protocol was not enacted until 2011, present data cannot determine the mortality risk factor presented by the elevated rate of concussion experienced by players during their career. That is, the complete pathway from concussion(s) to chronic traumatic encephalopathy and other neurodegenerative diseases (e.g., Parkinson’s Disease) to mortality risk among former NFL players is empirically indeterminable given present data.
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Extramural AwardSpirituality and Prosocial Values in the Absence of Religion Among Millennials and Their Families
Approximately one-third of millennials and post-millennials—young adults born 1981 and later—profess to have no connection to religion, according to the Pew Research Center. Yet evidence points to their strengthened humanitarian values and prominent spirituality. The degree to which religion is decoupled from prosocial goals and spirituality in contemporary young adults is one of many research questions to be addressed in the project.
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2018-2019 SU CUSE GrantChina’s Aging Population: Implications for Families and Public Policy
This proposal requests support to convene a workshop devoted to the topic of demographic change in China and its implications for family care and support for older adults. The goal of this workshop is to bring together prominent scholars working at the intersection of China studies, family science, gerontology, public policy, and demography to present research papers about the consequences of social and demographic change in China for meeting the needs of older individuals and their families, as well as the policy responses to those changes.
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