About Edson College

Who are caregivers turning to for support and why? And is it helping with their well-being? These are just some of the questions researchers in our Center for Innovation in Healthy and Resilient Aging are exploring as part of a new study.

Assistant Professors Allie Peckham and Aaron Guest received state funding for the project as part of the Arizona Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center’s Developmental Project Grant Program.

“The goal of the project is to look into caregiver networks— who they spend time with and lean on for support. We want to figure out if some types of networks are better than others at supporting caregivers' well-being,” Peckham said.

In identifying the key individuals who truly support caregivers, Peckham and Guest aim to partner directly with caregivers themselves. By tapping into their experiences, they'll create structured opportunities to build networks that genuinely offer meaningful support.

Their end goal makes this a unique approach.

“Rather than looking solely at social support - which is often used as a proxy for caregiver networks - we are looking at the structure of these caregiver networks to identify what makes some more successful than others,” Guest shared. “Through combining expertise in caregiver and resilience and social network analysis, we can begin to answer new questions about how we can ensure positive caregiver and care recipient outcomes.”

The team is recruiting Arizonans who are 40 or older and providing unpaid support to an individual living with dementia. Participants will complete an hour-long interview either over the phone or by Zoom.

To see if you’re eligible to participate, fill out the interest form at links.asu.edu/SNAC. For additional information, contact the team at [email protected].