The Gerontological Society of America (GSA) — the nation's largest interdisciplinary organization devoted to the field of aging — has chosen Alan Jette, PhD, of Boston University as the 2011 recipient of the Excellence in Rehabilitation of Aging Persons Award.
This distinguished honor is given annually to acknowledge outstanding contributions in the field of rehabilitation. The awardee's work may be in any or all of the areas of teaching or patient care, or publications which may include scholarly works, books, monographs, administrative directives, or public policy papers.
The award presentation will take place at GSA's 64th Annual Scientific Meeting, which will be held from November 18 to 22 in Boston, MA. This conference is organized to foster interdisciplinary collaboration among researchers, educators, and practitioners who specialize in the study of the aging process. Visit www.geron.org/annualmeeting for further details.
Jette is a professor of health policy and management in Boston University's School of Public Health and he directs Boston University's Health and Disability Research Institute. Additionally, he is the research director for the New England Regional Spinal Cord Injury Center based at Boston University Medical Center, director of the Boston University Post Doctoral Research Fellowship in Rehabilitation Outcomes and Effectiveness Research, and the associate director of the Boston Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center.
He is a physical therapist and an internationally recognized expert in the measurement of function and disability. He has developed numerous instruments that assess function and disability and has published numerous articles on these topics in the rehabilitation, geriatrics, and public health literature. Jette's current research interests include the measurement, epidemiology, and prevention of disability, and the development and dissemination of contemporary outcome measurement instruments to evaluate the quality of health care.
Jette was responsible for the development of the Late Life Function and Disability Instrument and, more recently, computer adaptive measures of function for different populations, including people post-rehabilitation, older adults, and people with osteoarthritis. He also has applied his research to randomized clinical trials to reduce disability in older adults using cognitive-behavioral strategies, exercise training, and programs to reduce fear of falling. He furthermore developed and tested innovative strategies to disseminate these programs to the wider community.
Jette is a GSA fellow, which represents the Society's highest class of membership. He received his BS in physical therapy from the State University of New York at Buffalo in and his MPH and PhD in public health from the University of Michigan.
The Gerontological Society of America (GSA) is the nation's oldest and largest interdisciplinary organization devoted to research, education, and practice in the field of aging. The principal mission of the Society — and its 5,400+ members — is to advance the study of aging and disseminate information among scientists, decision makers, and the general public. GSA's structure also includes a policy institute, the National Academy on an Aging Society, and an educational branch, the Association for Gerontology in Higher Education.