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Published on UMCP’s School of Public Health website, Adapted by MPower | September 9, 2025

Editor’s Note: The University of Maryland Institute for Health Computing is a strategic initiative of the University of Maryland Strategic Partnership: MPowering the State, combining computational and biomedical expertise with clinical care to drive healthcare innovation.

America’s population is the oldest it has ever been. And though older people are more independent than ever, they face a huge care gap, one that challenges families, communities and healthcare systems. 

Enter the Center for Seniors Uniting Nationwide to Support Health, INtegrated care, and Economics, known as the Center for SUNSHINE, an interdisciplinary collaboration funded by a $901,000 grant from the National Institute on Aging (NIA) for the first two years to establish the center, with the potential for up to six years of support. 

Co-led by the University of Maryland School of Public Health (UMCP SPH) and the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB), the Center for SUNSHINE will serve as a national hub for interdisciplinary research, training and real-world innovation to strengthen resilience in aging populations. The center, outlined in a study in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry this month, draws from 50 years of scholarship at UMCP’s Center on Aging and the computational innovation and clinical partnerships enabled by the University of Maryland Institute for Health Computing (UM-IHC). 

“Our ultimate goal is happy, healthy and well-supported aging for everyone,” said Dr. Jie Chen, professor and chair of the Department of Health Policy and Management, and director of the Center on Aging and the Hospital And Public health interdisciPlinarY research (HAPPY) Lab at UMCP SPH. “The Center for SUNSHINE is about building aging resilience by transforming the systems that shape health and care. Through bold interdisciplinary research, we aim to strengthen care coordination, empower communities and reimagine the health and social infrastructure needed to support aging across the nation.”

The center will be helmed by Chen with co-leads Dr. Rozalina McCoy, associate professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) and director of the Center for Population Health at UM-IHC and Dr. Stephen Thomas, professor of health policy and management at UMCP SPH. 

“We are creating a remarkable platform for research, education and innovation in healthcare delivery – bringing together economics, demography, medicine, population health, artificial intelligence, epidemiology and health informatics – all in service of improving care systems and boosting the resilience of our older populations,” said McCoy. 

Ten academic units across UMCP are involved in the Center for SUNSHINE, including the A James Clark School of Engineering and the Artificial Intelligence Interdisciplinary Institute at Maryland (AIM). Other partners include Howard University and the Erickson School of Aging Studies at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC); see below for a full list of partners. 

The Center will invest in training and mentoring the next generation of scholars, with a focus on aging resilience and health systems research. It will also support pilot projects led by qualified researchers nationwide, offering access to anonymized Medicare claims, electronic health records and geospatial data, along with analytic and modeling support. Funded pilot investigators will receive tailored development resources to advance their research and career trajectories.

“Community engagement is a major focus of the Center for SUNSHINE. We are committed to ensuring that older adults and their families are not just ‘human subjects’ of research, but true collaborators in shaping the science, policies and innovations that support healthy aging,” said Thomas. 

In its first year, the Center for SUNSHINE will fund two pilot projects that directly apply research to improving the health and wellbeing of older people: Dr. Shelby Steuart, at UMCP, will examine telehealth and behavioral health care for older adults and Dr. Margaret Connolly at UMSOM will explore access to novel treatments for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a common condition in older people.