Opportunities for More Aging and Disparities Research, Mentoring, and Data Sharing With REGARDS

One of the benefits of this large, national cohort study with black and white participants is the opportunity to involve a breadth of researchers in the science. REGARDS actively solicits and engages early career and minority investigators to lead or participate in manuscripts as well as ancillary studies. REGARDS has provided opportunities for >175 ancillary studies, including those that enrich existing outcomes, provide new outcomes, assess new exposures, link with other national data, support extended analyses, and assess genetic associations. Over 70% of the 500+ publications to date have a lead author who was not a funded REGARDS investigator. In this presentation, we will discuss some of the innovative ancillary studies and high-impact manuscripts that have grown out of REGARDS, the processes for developing an ancillary study/manuscript, and the procedures for obtaining REGARDS data. We will describe opportunities for mentored research for junior investigators, as well as independent research projects.