Facilities and Resources

Facilities and Resources

Offices

The Center for Aging and Population Health (CAPH) is located on the 3rd, 4th and 5th floors of the Bellefield Professional Building, 130 N. Bellefield Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA. The Center for Aging and Population Health includes the McKeesport Prevention Research Center office and the Health Studies Research Center, designed for the conduct of large epidemiologic studies and clinical trials. The Center for Aging and Population Health provides resources for the analysis, presentation and publication of findings from current research and maintains several large data sets from multicenter studies.

Administrative Office: The faculty and administrative offices of the CAPH are located in the Bellefield Professional Building, which houses the director’s office and several core faculty. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)-funded Prevention Research Center and aspects of this program are administrated in offices on the 3rd floor, with a community based field office in McKeesport, Pennsylvania.

Biostatistics Core: The Biostatistics Core of the CAPH provides scientific direction for the analysis of studies on aging. Because of the wealth of data collected through the longitudinal studies conducted by the investigators, there are numerous large datasets available for use in ancillary studies and manuscripts.

Events Surveillance: The CAPH has an events surveillance group focusing on the investigation of clinical outcomes for both clinical trials and observational studies. The group is supported by staff trained in health information management and knowledgeable in HIPAA regulations for research.

McKeesport Field Office: Based in McKeesport, PA, the CAPH-PRC conducts community-based health promotion and disease prevention programs throughout Allegheny County and extending to senior centers across Pennsylvania. The office is located in McKeesport Hospital, approximately 30-minute drive from the University. CAPH-PRC also holds programs in donated space (YMCAs, churches, community centers, senior centers) throughout Allegheny County.

Health Studies Research Center

The Health Studies Research Center (HSRC) of the Center for Aging and Population Health includes the staff and space (15,000 square feet) designed for the conduct of population research in aging, including interview rooms and a large clinical laboratory for evaluation of health and performance. Located at 130 N. Bellefield Avenue, the 4th floor includes 13,025 square feet of examination rooms for clinical examination and testing, and telephone interviews. A large locked and alarmed file room on the 3rd floor provides for confidential storage of participant records. A dark fiber optic line provides access to several local and national wide area networks, including access to the Epidemiology Data Center server. A conference room is also available with a fully equipped demonstration kitchen for participant information sessions, and also for use by staff and investigators. The HSRC laboratory is also located on the fourth floor and is a fully equipped lab which provides for phlebotomy and the processing and storage of serum, plasma, cells and DNA, as well as urine samples.

Equipment

Health Studies Research Center Equipment includes:

  • Anthropometry stations (stadiometers and balance beam scales)
  • Stopwatches and marked corridors for 6, 20 and 400 meter walks
  • GaitMat
  • 2 video cameras for gait assessment
  • 2 force plate for balance assessment and 1 Leonardo and AMTI force plate to measure muscle power
  • 4 Polar Pacer heart monitors
  • 20 ActiGraph GT3x accelerometers
  • 15 Mini-meter sleep actigraphy watches
  • 10 blood pressure sphygmomanometers (including analog, mercury, and digital)
  • 1 dual energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA) scanners (Hologic 4500 Discovery)
  • 1 pQCT scanner to measure bone quality
  • 2 NeuroMax 1002 Electromyograph (EMG)
  • 1 electrocardiography (ECG) machine
  • Stationary (Deltatrac, Parvomedics TrueOne 2400) and portable (CosMed) metabolic carts
  • Strength testing devices: spirometry (desktop and portable), leg extension power (Nottingham Power Rig), isometric (Good Strength Chair), isokinetic (BioDex) and isotonic (Jaymar grip strength), and pneumonic (Keiser leg press)
  • The laboratory is equipped with two benchtop IEC GP8R refrigerated centrifuges,one room temperature centrifuge and three freezers (-70, -40 and -20)
  • The lab is set up to perform lipid panels and glucose using Cholestech analyzer, blood gas using Radiometer unit and sedimentation rate measurements

University of Pittsburgh
Center for Aging and Population Health
130 N Bellefield Ave
Pittsburgh, PA 15213