The Study of Longevity and Stress in African Americans (SOLSAA) is a 5-year project sponsored by the National Institute on Aging.
On average, African Americans have shorter life expectancies than the overall population. However, there is a subset of African Americans who live well beyond 80 years of age who are considered “exceptional survivors”. Few, if any studies have taken a comprehensive approach to investigate biopsychosocial factors that shape health outcomes among older African Americans.
The goal of SOLSAA is to identify patterns of stress, discrimination, sources of resilience, health status, and genes that contribute to longevity observed within African American families. We are examining these factors using vertical and horizontal approaches by studying similarities between parent-child and sibling pairs.
Tyson H. Brown is the PI of the $2.8M SOLSAA subcontract at Duke. The study team at Duke also includes biologist Mike Hauser, a study coordinator (Camela Barker), and four full-time staff members who are conducting interviews and analyzing data. Keith E. Whitfield (Wayne State University) and Roland J. Thorpe (Johns Hopkins University) are the principal investigators of the parent grant (R01 AG05436).