“If you think about major societal challenges, a number are very predictable,” says Hans-Peter Kohler, Frederick J. Warren Professor of Demography and professor of sociology in the School of Arts & Sciences. “One of them is climate change. Another is population aging; this is a major domestic and global challenge.”
A worldwide increase in life expectancy and decrease in fertility rates led the World Health Organization to predict in 2022 that the proportion of the world’s population over 60 years old will nearly double between 2015 and 2050, from 12 to 22 percent. Related difficulties include providing health and long-term care needs, finding treatments for cognitive diseases like Alzheimer’s, and addressing health disparities in aging.
Yet studying or researching population aging is not part of the curriculum available to most college undergraduates, says Kohler.
He and colleagues Norma B. Coe and Rachel M. Werner of the Perelman School of Medicine responded by creating the Get Experience in Aging Research Undergraduate Program, or GEAR UP. The initiative is run by the Population Aging Research Center (PARC), which Kohler and Coe co-direct, and the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics, led by Werner. Established in the spring of 2022 with funding from the National Institute on Aging, GEAR UP supports research in STEM areas related to population aging by undergraduate students from underrepresented and disadvantaged backgrounds attending colleges across the country.
GEAR UP’s first cohort had eight students, six of whom were from Penn. This year there are 13 students from nine schools, including five from Penn. They are working on research ranging from the availability and effectiveness of care to health disparities and caregivers’ needs. The program is 15 months long, including two summers and the academic year between. It introduces students to researchers and topics, connects them with mentors to work on research initiatives, and provides workshops and social events.
“It’s an opportunity to prep and get help, make sure people with different skills get on the same page,” says Arturo Bardales, who is in the second cohort of GEAR UP fellows. Other events let students learn about each other’s research or just socialize. “We go out to eat as a group, we went to a conference in Seattle,” he says. “It was definitely a bonding experience.”
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