2007 Press Releases
24.07.2007
UCC graduate, Dr Patricia Kearney has been awarded The Paul Beeson Fellowship to become the first ever recipient of the award outside of the United States of America (USA).
The award by the The Atlantic Philanthropies and the American Federation for Ageing Research (AFAR) is made to physicians with an interest in ageing to develop high impact research studies on Ageing.
Dr Kearney will join The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA) team to research the study on the cardiovascular risk factors of ageing and the interaction between heart and blood pressure disorders and development of memory problems and dementia. This work will inform new studies for treatments to prevent dementia. Her work titled “Biopsychosocial Factors and Vascular Disease in an Ageing Cohort of Irish Adults” will be based at the Institute of Neurosciences, Trinity College, Dublin (TCIN) and will be jointly supervised by Professor Rose Anne Kenny at TCIN and Professor Ivan Perry, Department of Epidemiology, University College Cork.
The TILDA study, which is being led by Trinity College, is a cross-institutional study which will provide a detailed and comprehensive picture of the lives of up to 10,000 people charting their health, social and economic circumstances as they age over at least a 10 year period. The information gathered will be invaluable to policy makers and practitioners in the areas of health, social care, transport and pensions, as well as for the voluntary sector, business and service industries.
Dr Kearney will use data collected by TILDA to determine the prevalence of known cardiovascular risk factors in the ageing Irish population, including hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, diabetes, smoking, and lack of physical activity. She will assess the extent to which these factors are clustered together in the population to quantify the burden posed by different risk factors in the population as well as to assess the potential benefits of strategies to prevent and treat such risk factors.
A former Fulbright Scholar, Dr Kearney has a PhD in epidemiology from Tulane University in New Orleans, and until recently worked as a clinical research fellow at the University of Oxford. She will be jointly supervised by Professor RoseAnne Kenny, Chair of Geriatric Medicine in Trinity College Dublin and Professor Ivan Perry, Chair of Epidemiology and Public Health in University College Cork.
The Paul B. Beeson Career Development Awards in Aging Research Program was created in 1994 to address a critical need for more physicians trained in geriatrics and to advance the field of aging research in the United States. With start up funding from organizations that included The John A. Hartford Foundation and The Atlantic Philanthropies, the program has awarded more than $68 million to 138 researchers.
Professor Brendan Whelan, Research Director of TILDA said: “Patricia’s studies will be of great value to the understanding of ageing in Ireland and in particular our understanding of the factors impacting on cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death in Ireland. It is a reflection of the importance of the TILDA study, and of Patricia’s work that the Paul Beeson fellowship has been awarded to assist in the funding of this research.”
About TILDA
The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA) is a major initiative to support successful ageing in Ireland. Launched by the Minister for Health in November 2006, it will chart the health, social and economic circumstances of Irish people aged 50 and over. TILDA is an inter-institutional collaboration by Irish academics. Led by Trinity College, the partners include: Dundalk Institute of Technology, the Economic and Social Research Institute, National University of Ireland Galway, the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, University College Cork and University College Dublin.
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