LAS VEGAS - December 4, 2009 - Carolee Dodge Francis, assistant professor and executive director of the American Indian Research and Education Center at UNLV, will spend the next two years investigating health disparities among American Indian and Alaska Native elders through a fellowship from the Native Elder Research Center (NERC) at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center.
Dr. Dodge Francis is one of just five researchers nationally to be accepted into the center's Native Investigator Development Program for 2010. The program, which accepts small cohorts of researchers biennially, is designed to increase the presence of American Indian and Alaska Native scientists in aging-related research. Researchers will focus on finding solutions to health issues that disproportionately affect Native elders and on improving this group's access to both physical and mental health care.
Participants will work closely with NERC faculty mentors; engage in intensive group instruction, workshops and seminars; and work across academic disciplines to design and implement a pilot study focused on the health of aging American Indians. Much of the fellowship will be carried out at the participant's home institution, with bimonthly instruction and meetings at multiple host sites.
Dr. Dodge Francis' current research addresses a variety of issues pertaining to health and chronic disease among American Indians and Alaska Natives. She's working on an NIH-funded project to design a lifestyle-based intervention to improve risk factors that lead to onset of type 2 diabetes. She also examines obesity in American Indians by analyzing the history and current use of commodity foods; how historical and current patterns of commodity food use affect food choices and food preferences; and attitudinal and behavioral implications for health and food subsidy policies for American Indian populations. She is a member of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin.
The Native Elder Research Center is the only resource center of its kind funded by the National Institute on Aging to study aging issues in American Indians and Alaska Natives.
