CACHE
Online seminars

Featuring: Alex Mikulas, University of Colorado Boulder and CACHE Postdoctoral Associate

Speaker: Dr. Bernice Rosenzweig, Osilas Endowed Chair of Environmental Science, Sarah Lawrence College

The Health and Retirement Study (HRS) holds tremendous potential to facilitate important research on aging-health-environment. View the October 2025 workshop agenda, with links to slide decks for each day’s overviews and presentations.

This training is a joint effort by the CAFE RCC and the virtual Center on Aging, Health, and Environment (CACHE). Intended for researchers unfamiliar or new to Github, this training provides recommendations on why you should use it to further your research and guidance for getting started.

This climate primer led by Dr. Christian Braneon of the City University of New York (CUNY) Institute for Demographic Research (CIDR) will cover climate variability, the components of climate risk, and insights on developing projections of future climate for interdisciplinary research. The primer will close by sharing a few examples of projects that characterize current and future health burden by integrating social, health, and environmental data.

The Climate Primer will be moderated by Dr. Deborah Balk and Kris Karnauskas.

This climate primer led by Prof. Kris Karnauskas of the University of Colorado Boulder will cover the basic energy balance of the climate system, the greenhouse effect, a few examples of the physical symptoms of global warming that we are observing with state-of-the-art technology including melting ice, ocean warming and sea level rise, and how we know these changes are being caused by anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases. The primer will close by sharing insights into the connection between climate and vector-borne disease from the perspective of two recent research projects investigating the role of climate variability on malaria in southeastern Africa. Climate Primer moderated by Dr. Lori Hunter. 

The seminar will discuss heat measures for aging and demographic research. It will address the properties and pertinence of using mean and extreme temperature measures, as well as using combined indicators of heat (temperature, humidity, radiation, or ventilation) and their adjustments by age. To illustrate construct, measures results and data integration strategies results from two demonstration projects will be presented. Plenty of time will be provided for Q&A.

Impact of Extreme Weather on Hard-to-Capture, Vulnerable Populations: Evidence from Hart Island — New York’s Public Burial Ground

Investigators: Frank W. Heiland, Deborah Balk, Selen Ozdogan, Jennifer Brite, Peter Marcotullio and Christian Braneon
Funded by NIAID R03 Grant AI166809-01, NIA R61AG086854 (CACHE)

Living Arrangements of the Elderly, Care Patterns, and Heat Stress

Investigators: Landy Sánchez, Emerson Baptista, Cecilia Conde 
Funded by UN Women

This seminar uses two ongoing interdisciplinary, research projects to illustrate techniques for integrating social and environmental data at the county scale. The projects engage different social data (American Time Use Survey; National Health Interview Survey) and different climate-related data (temperature data from GridMET; disaster data from FEMA and SHELDUS). Investigators will review project goals, background on data and measurement decisions, as well as integration and analytical strategies. Plenty of time will be provided for Q&A.

Behavioral Response to Extreme Temperatures among the Elderly

Integration of American Time Use Survey & temperature data from GridMET
Investigators: Kathryn Grace, Sarah Flood
University of Minnesota (Minnesota Population Center – MPC)
Funded by NIA-UMNLCC seed funding (P30AG066613)

Natural Disasters and the Health of the Rural Elderly

Integration of National Health Interview Survey; Disaster data from FEMA, SHELDUS
Investigators: Lori Hunter, Catherine Talbot, Helen Wilson-Burns
University of Colorado Boulder (CU Population Center – CUPC)
Funded by NIA (R03AG080252); NIA-funded NILCHDD  (R24AG045061)