# Pepper OAIC Coordinating Center

> **NIH NIH U24** · WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY HEALTH SCIENCES · 2024 · $640,000

## Abstract

The Coordinating Center (CC) for the Older Americans Independence Centers (OAIC) Program plans, initiates,
facilitates, and coordinates activities that maximize OAIC collaborations. Our guiding philosophy is to focus on
activities that promise high impact but would be difficult for individual OAICs to achieve on their own, and which
result in collaborations that unlock synergy, thereby making the whole (the OAIC program) greater than its
parts (the individual centers and investigators). Our preliminary data show that the present cycle has been the
most successful and productive to date. The proposed new cycle will build on and extend these
accomplishments with initiatives embedded in the following four Specific Aims, which were informed by our
preliminary data, including our evaluation processes and our structured interviews with three key groups of
stakeholders: directors of all 15 OAICs, a panel of early career investigators, and NIA program officials.
Specific Aim 1. Enhance communications and coordination within the OAIC program and with the greater
aging research community. Specific Aim 2. Facilitate and promote OAIC-themed collaborative research.
Specific Aim 3. Enhance the development of the next generation of researchers in aging. Specific Aim 4.
Accelerate implementation of key OAIC research findings into member health care systems and their
communities. We will achieve these aims by capitalizing on: 1) our 17 years of experience and earned trust in
progressively building collaborations; 2) an expanded, multi-disciplinary, cohesive, multi-institutional team of
experienced leaders with complementary skills and well-defined roles; 3) our well established processes,
including four working groups and inclusion of key stakeholders; 4) regular input and guidance from the OAIC
Directors Committee and NIA program officials; and 5) continously evaluating progress toward each aim and
overall goals of the program. This proposed renewal of the CC will further increase the breadth and depth of
OAIC collaboration, provide vital new research opportunities, particularly for early career investigators, promote
career development of new investigators, and disseminate key OAIC research findings to improve the
healthcare of older Americans.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10840440
- **Project number:** 5U24AG059624-07
- **Recipient organization:** WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY HEALTH SCIENCES
- **Principal Investigator:** DALANE W KITZMAN
- **Activity code:** U24 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $640,000
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2018-07-15 → 2028-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10840440

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10840440, Pepper OAIC Coordinating Center (5U24AG059624-07). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10840440. Licensed CC0.

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