Principal Investigator: Mary Kane Goldstein, MD
Title: Center on Advancing Decision Making for Aging
Web address: http://healthpolicy.stanford.edu/research/cadma
Contact e-mail: mary.goldstein@va.gov
The Stanford Roybal Center on Advancing Decision Making for Aging (CADMA) promotes the study of decision making processes and the determinants of choices that affect health and well-being in the later years of life. CADMA researchers conduct basic and applied research on decision making processes with a goal of developing and implementing practical methods for improving fundamental decisions affecting the well-being of the elderly. The research is conducted by collaborating psychologists, psychiatrists, geriatricians and other physicians, experts on medical informatics, epidemiologists, and economists. Each year, CADMA funds pilot studies, and each project builds upon multidisciplinary collaboration and has the potential to contribute to a growing body of research that will translate into useful decision making tools.
CADMA has built significant ties with several centers within the Stanford community, including Stanford’s Center for Health Policy and its Center for Primary Care and Outcomes Research, the School of Medicine, the School of Humanities and Sciences, the Graduate School of Business, the Stanford Center on Longevity (SCL), the Center on the Demography and Economics of Health and Aging, and Stanford Medical Informatics. CADMA also has collaborative activity with investigators at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System, the Palo Alto Medical Foundation Research Institute, RAND Health, and University of Southern California (USC). These relationships have been instrumental in CADMA’s success in organizing seminars and joint symposia to discuss various approaches to research questions related to aging, decision making, and health.
CADMA is particularly dedicated to supporting the success of young investigators pursuing research in aging and decision making, and fosters dynamic linkages among junior and senior researchers from a multitude of disciplines across centers and institutions.
Specific Aims
CADMA research will focus on the following areas:
- To investigate the roles that age-related changes in emotion and cognition play in decision making, especially those surrounding cognitively complex (e.g., health care plan choice) and emotionally-charged (e.g., decisions about end-of-life care) topics.
- To learn how decision making processes influence day-to-day decisions, such as choices regarding exercise and diet, that influence health and functional status of the elderly.
- To develop and evaluate support tools or information useful to such tools that could be provided at or near the times that people face difficult life decisions.
Related Links
- Stanford Health Policy: http://healthpolicy.stanford.edu/
- Stanford Center on Longevity: http://longevity.stanford.edu/