UM gets $19M to expand 1992 study of senior health

ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) - The University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research has received $19 million in federal stimulus grants for a continuing study of retirement and health.

The two-year funding comes from the National Institutes of Health.

The school says the grants fund adding 3,000 people to the Health & Retirement Study that began in 1992. They include about 1,000 African Americans and about 1,000 Latinos.

It says doubling the number of minority group members between 51 and 61 years old will aid knowledge of understudied people.

The grants also will pay for genome-wide scans of previously collected saliva samples from about 13,000 participants to search for genetic factors in many health conditions.