The National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR) at ACL has awarded an Rehabilitation Research and Training Center (RRTC) project grant in the amount of $874,999 every year for five years to the University of Pittsburgh Center for Caregiving Research, Education, and Policy to support research towards advancing family caregiving support for people with disabilities.
The mission of the project is to facilitate the rapid translation and dissemination of state-of-the-art research and training into direct services and support programs designed to improve care, health, and quality of life of people with disabilities and their families. The center has four aims: 1) advance state-of-the-science research in caregiving, rehabilitation; and ehealth self-management support in people with disabilities and their family caregivers with the goal of maintaining independent living in the community; 2) train health and rehabilitation providers and researchers to support families caring for people with disabilities; 3) leverage findings from center research projects to advance the capacity of healthcare and public health systems to deliver high-quality, tailored support to family caregivers of people with disabilities, and; 4) utilize dynamic mechanisms to translate and disseminate knowledge to people with disabilities, family caregivers, policymakers, service providers, researchers, employers, and other key stakeholders.
Four research projects have been designed at the intersection of three domains of science: caregiving, disability/rehabilitation, and ehealth self-management support with the goal of supporting family caregivers of people with disabilities to maintain independent living in the community. The projects will: (R1) characterize family support and its impact on health and quality of life outcomes among people with disabilities across the lifespan and their family caregivers living in the community; (R2) develop and evaluate an ImHere mobile health self-management intervention for family caregivers to be delivered in conjunction with an existing intervention for patients with brain and spinal anomalies; (R3) scale-up and disseminate CAPABLE (an established intervention to support older adults with activity limitations age-in-place) for family-centered care delivery through a regional Area Agency on Aging with the goal of increasing access to families who do not qualify for Medicaid; and (R4) implement and evaluate an mHealth SmartRehab program (integrating cancer patient and caregiver self-management interventions with demonstrated efficacy) across a large healthcare system to optimize return to social participation for survivors of gynecologic cancer with participation restrictions and their family caregivers.
The purpose of the RRTC program, which are funded through the Disability and Rehabilitation Research Projects and Centers Program, is to achieve the goals of, and improve the effectiveness of, services authorized under the Rehabilitation Act through well-designed research, training, technical assistance, and dissemination activities in important topic areas as specified by NIDILRR. These activities are designed to benefit rehabilitation service providers, individuals with disabilities, family members, and other stakeholders.
Within ACL, NIDILRR works to generate new knowledge and promote its effective use to improve the abilities of individuals with disabilities to perform activities of their choice in the community; and to expand society's capacity to provide full opportunities and accommodations for people with disabilities. NIDILRR conducts its work through grants that support research and development.