Ingersoll-Dayton's next research project is also associated with Asia. I hope to work with colleagues at UM and in Thailand to identify among the Thai elderly what they consider to be the dimensions of a good quality of life, and to develop a series of survey questions that will get at this information. Professor Sheila Feld's current research interests focus on older people who need assistance with their daily activities to remain in the community and the people who provide this assistance. With her partners, Professor Ruth Dunkle and doctoral student Tracy Schroepfer , Feld has been looking at the racial and ethnic similarities and differences in who provides assistance, following a representative national sample of white, black and Mexican American elders who are seventy years and older. Among those elderly who are not married, the differences were less marked.
Children are the predominant sources of support in all three groups.
It is important to identify the care givers because quite often they need support to continue their aid to the infirm elder. Professors Dunkle and Feld oversee a grant the School has received for the past thirteen years from NIA to provide training in applied research issues in aging to predoctoral and postdoctoral fellows. This influx of researchers can't come too soon. Aging baby boomers and increased longevity will soon contribute to a greatly expanded population of elderly who are going to require special services to help them stay healthy and alert and to make their lives less stressful. These kinds of questions require immediate answers answers that gerontological research can help to provide.