Support

DEAR Team

DEAR seeks to create a community of researchers with interests in the areas of age-related social, economic, and demographic behavior.  Each member of our team is an approved affiliate of DEAR.

Administration of Grants

The Carolina Population Center (CPC) can administer any grant obtained by the researcher. The CPC, as the administrator of the DEAR program, does not require that researchers who have obtained seed funding through DEAR and who obtain subsequent funding from NIA or another source use the CPC as their administrator. 

Secure Data Facility

With support from the DEAR program, a Secure Data Facility (SDF) was established at the Carolina Population Center in Spring 2002. The SDF has controlled entry and computing equipment configured to accommodate only authorized users and appropriate use. The one entry is always locked. Keys are locked in an off-site safe used exclusively for the SDF. Users gain access to the SDF through the use of a combination lock, and the combination is changed whenever anyone loses authorization to use the SDF. Inside the SDF are two protected computers, networked to each other and a secured printer only, with software needed by the researcher. The SDF has already been used as a site for research with restricted data from the Health and Retirement Study, one of the major data resources in the aging area, and other researchers are planning to use it for this purpose.