UIC Receives Grant to Study Support Needs of Family Caregivers

The University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) has received a grant to convene a research center that will examine the support needs of family caregivers who care for people with disabilities.

The new center, which will be called the Research and Training Center on Family Support, will also bring together aging and disability experts to share and compare support strategies.

Support networks for caregivers of elders and caregivers for people with disabilities currently have little overlap, but the new center is designed to change that, a UIC press release said.

“There are lots of good interventions and ideas within the aging and disability ‘silos’ that can and should be exchanged,” said Sandy Magaña, the principal investigator at the center and a professor of disability and human development at UIC.

Over the next five years, the center also intends to complete several major research projects using data collective from a variety of sources, including from interviews with family caregivers.

The center will “develop a strategic plan to prioritize research for federal funding,” the press release said.

The five-year program is being funded by a $4.3 million grant from the federal Administration for Community Living and National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research.

— by Matthew Ozga