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Principal Investigator: Daniel Walker Belsky
Organization: COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY HEALTH SCIENCES
Fiscal Year: 2024
Award: $164,500
Funding agency: National Institute on Aging
The purpose of this grant is to obtain preliminary data to support a larger study that would recontact 11,240
participants of a successful multicenter randomized controlled trial of small class sizes called Project
Student/Teacher Achievement Ratio (STAR). This future study would provide critically important information on
whether changes to early childhood education can have positive impacts on healthy aging and risk factors for
Alzheimer’s Disease and Alzheimer’s Disease Related Dementias (AD/ADRD). The original study, conducted
between 1985-1989, produced higher rates of high school graduation, college attendance, earnings, home
ownership, higher savings, and lower crime among treated participants relative to control participants. Because
these are social determinants of health, we expect that it also improved participants’ health and aging and
proximate risk factors for AD/ADRD. Project STAR therefore presents one potential solution to the vexing
problem of declining health in the United States.
Project STAR is unique not only because it experimentally tests the value of small class size on education, but
also because it tests other measures of classroom quality, such as teacher experience. It therefore allows for
two experiments in one.
Our short-term objectives are to examine whether Project STAR reduced premature mortality for the
treatment group relative to the control group and to assess the feasibility of recontacting the original cohort.
Our long-term objective is to turn Project STAR into a living cohort to study the social determinants of healthy
aging by collecting laboratory and survey data, including biological age, pace of aging and proximal risk factors
for AD/ADRD. The aims of the study are: 1) to collect preliminary data for a future R01; 2) to determine
whether small class sizes reduce premature mortality in mid-adulthood; and 3) to release a dataset linking
Project STAR experimental data to prospective mortality records using NDI.
Terms: <0-11 years old><21+ years old><AD dementia><AD related dementia><ADRD><Achievement><Achievement Attainment><Active Follow-up><Address><Adult><Adult Human><Age><Aging><Alzheimer Type Dementia><Alzheimer disease dementia><Alzheimer risk factor><Alzheimer sclerosis><Alzheimer syndrome><Alzheimer's><Alzheimer's Disease><Alzheimer's and related dementias><Alzheimer's disease and related dementia><Alzheimer's disease and related disorders><Alzheimer's disease or a related dementia><Alzheimer's disease or a related disorder><Alzheimer's disease or related dementia><Alzheimer's disease related dementia><Alzheimer's disease risk><Alzheimers Dementia><Applications Grants><Attainment Rate><Biological Aging><Biological Function><Biological Process><Black American><Blood Sample><Blood specimen><Brain><Brain Nervous System><Cause of Death><Cessation of life><Child><Child Youth><Childhood><Children (0-21)><Chronic Disease><Chronic Illness><Cohort Studies><Collaborations><Collection><Communities><Concurrent Studies><Control Groups><Credentialing><Crime><Data><Data Banks><Data Set><Databanks><Death><Decrease disparity><Development><Diet><Differential Mortality><Distal><E-Mail><Economic Income><Economical Income><Education><Education for Intervention><Educational Intervention><Educational aspects><Electronic Mail><Email><Encephalon><Exercise><Fostering><Funding><Future><Graduation Rates><Grant><Grant Proposals><Health><Home><Household><Impact evaluation><Impoverished><Incidence><Income><Instruction Intervention><Intervention><Intervention Strategies><Investigation><Laboratories><Life><Life Cycle><Life Cycle Stages><Link><Longitudinal Studies><Lower disparity><Measures><Neighborhoods><Outcome><Ownership><Participant><Phone><Poverty><Premature Aging><Premature Mortality><Premature aging syndrome><Primary Senile Degenerative Dementia><Probability><Psychologic Stress><Psychological Stress><Randomized><Randomized, Controlled Trials><Recontacts><Records><Research><Risk Factors><Savings><Schools><Smoking><Standardization><Students><Survey Instrument><Surveys><Telephone><Tennessee><Testing><Time><Training Intervention><United States><active followup><adulthood><ages><alzheimer risk><biological age><biological process of age><brain health><caucasian American><chronic disorder><cohort><college><collegiate><cost><data depository><data repository><data set repository><dataset repository><design><designing><developmental><diets><disease prevention><disorder prevention><disparity elimination><disparity reduction><early childhood><electronic communication><eliminate disparities><eliminating disparities><experience><experiment><experimental research><experimental study><experiments><follow up><follow-up><followed up><followup><graduate school><healthy aging><healthy human aging><high school><high school degree><high school diploma><homes><improved><incomes><indexing><instructional intervention><interventional strategy><kids><life course><long-term study><longitudinal outcome studies><longterm study><mid life><mid-life><middle age><middle aged><midlife><mitigate disparity><mortality><pace of aging><pace of biological aging><pediatric><physical conditioning><physical health><population health><primary degenerative dementia><prospective><randomisation><randomization><randomized control trial><randomly assigned><rate of aging><rate of biological aging><reduce disparity><reduction in disparity><senile dementia of the Alzheimer type><social determinants><social health determinants><sociodeterminant><speed of aging><speed of the aging><success><teacher><treatment group><white American><willingness><youngster>