A Florida State University research team has received a $350,000 grant from the Humana Foundation to develop and test an artificial intelligence-powered system that helps older adults build social connections through volunteering and community engagement.

The two-year project, “ALCOVE: A Personalized AI Concierge to Promote Community Engagement and Social Connectedness Among Older Adults,” will create a digital platform tailored to the needs, preferences and lifestyles of older adults across North Florida.

Led by FSU School of Information Professor and Institute for Successful Longevity Director Zhe He, the interdisciplinary team includes co-principal investigators Mia Liza A. Lustria and Dawn Carr, along with collaborators from multiple FSU departments and partner institutions.

“Social isolation is one of the most pressing public health crises, yet it is often an overlooked challenge facing older adults, and this grant from the Humana Foundation gives us the opportunity to do something meaningful about it,” He said. “ALCOVE harnesses the power of AI to help older adults find meaningful volunteer and social activities in their community — in a way that feels personal and supportive. It supports people in taking meaningful steps to reconnect with their communities and improve their overall well-being. We are deeply grateful to the Humana Foundation and look forward to making a real difference in the lives of older adults in North Florida.”

The ALCOVE system will function as a personalized “digital social concierge,” guiding users through a simple conversational process to learn about their interests, mobility, transportation options and social preferences. The platform will then match participants with vetted volunteer and community opportunities and provide ongoing reminders, encouragement and follow-up support to help them stay engaged.

The project addresses a growing public health concern. Research has linked chronic loneliness among older adults to increased risks of cognitive decline, heart disease, depression and premature death, as well as billions of dollars in annual health care costs. ALCOVE aims to connect older adults to community, purpose and opportunity.

“Finding opportunities is only part of the solution. People are much more likely to stay engaged when opportunities reflect who they are and fit the realities of their daily lives,” Lustria said. “AI makes that level of personalization possible by learning about each person’s interests, motivations, abilities, transportation options, and other real-world circumstances, allowing ALCOVE to deliver tailored recommendations and ongoing support that simply wouldn’t be feasible at this scale. Ultimately, our goal is to make meaningful community engagement more accessible, helping older adults find purpose, build relationships, and strengthen their connections with the communities around them.”

Carr, director of FSU’s Claude Pepper Center, noted the importance of the specific focus of this project on volunteering.

“Volunteering is a particularly novel and important health behavior to focus on with older adults at risk of experiencing social isolation and loneliness because it is among the most well-established activities for promoting meaningful social connections,” she said. “Not only does volunteering help people feel more connected in the community and with others, it’s also as effective as other health behaviors like exercising and eating well, showing that people who regularly volunteer experience reduced physiological aging over time.”

The project reflects FSU’s leadership in community-engaged and innovative aging research. ALCOVE builds on more than seven years of collaborative research by the team, including NIH-funded efforts to develop AI tools that support healthy aging and long-term engagement among older adults.

The Humana Foundation grant supports the development of the AI system, community-based research and evaluation of outcomes related to social engagement, loneliness and emotional well-being.

Through focus groups and co-design workshops, researchers will work with older adults in North Florida to identify challenges to social participation and shape the platform’s development. The team will then test the system in a two-year pilot study with approximately 50 participants.

Ultimately, the research team aims to use findings from the ALCOVE pilot to pursue additional federal funding and expand the platform to serve older adults nationwide.

The project includes collaborators from Weill Cornell Medicine and Arizona State University, as well as community partners such as the Tallahassee Senior Center, which will help connect researchers with local participants and organizations.

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A Florida State University researcher is part of a pioneering team that has developed a new measure to understand and support healthy aging, with the potential to change how health care workers, employers and policymakers assist older adults in remaining active and engaged.

Dawn Carr, director of FSU’s Claude Pepper Center and professor of sociology, is part of the multi-institutional research team that includes experts from Tufts University, University of Washington, Urban Institute and University of Michigan. Through their research, the team developed the Index of Aging in Midlife and Beyond (IAM+), a simple and accessible new tool designed to measure and predict healthy aging.

The IAM+ is a multi-domain measure of health that makes it possible to evaluate changes in aging from midlife and beyond, which can inform the design of early interventions that may lead to improved quality of life for adults as they age. Its simplicity and accessibility make it a powerful tool for tracking health and engagement at midlife when early health challenges often go undetected, with potential applications in research, policy and clinical practice.

“The solvency of our future workforce and health care system depends on researchers identifying ways to move the needle in improving the health of our rapidly aging population,” Carr said. “With tools like the IAM+ measure, we are better positioned to identify public health strategies and individual health behaviors that can increase the number of years people can remain actively engaged in meaningful activities.”

Traditional measures of aging often focus on advanced disability or single aspects of health, missing early signs of decline. The IAM+ index fills this gap by providing a multidimensional, accessible and reliable measure of health and functioning starting in midlife before severe disability sets in — and unlike expensive biomarker-based tools, relies on publicly available survey data, making it easy to implement and track over time.

The IAM+ is a 10-item scale that assesses a range of health domains, including self-reported overall health, eyesight, hearing, memory, chronic conditions, depressive symptoms, functional capacity and difficulties with daily activities and is intended to be used alongside contextual information. Scores range from 0.8 to 10, with higher scores indicating worse health and functioning. The index was developed using data from the Health and Retirement Study, a large national survey of Americans aged 51 and older.

“With tools like the IAM+ measure, we are better positioned to identify public health strategies and individual health behaviors that can increase the number of years people can remain actively engaged in meaningful activities.”

– Dawn Carr, director of the FSU Claude Pepper Center

One area of increasing importance is the health and well-being of older workers in the United States. The team’s research showed that people with physically demanding jobs in midlife already have significantly higher IAM+ scores (worse health) and experience accelerated aging as they move into later life. Even after retirement, those who worked in strenuous roles continued to show elevated scores compared to peers in less demanding jobs. This “scarring effect” suggests that workplace exposures can have lasting impacts on health.

Higher IAM+ scores in midlife also predicted reduced engagement in activities a decade later, including early labor force exits, less volunteering and lower exercise levels. Over 20 years, higher scores were linked to increased frailty, higher mortality risk and greater health care needs.

“Among the most robust health-protective behaviors linked to healthy aging are volunteering and exercising,” Carr said. “If early health declines restrict our ability to participate in these kinds of activities, we face further risks that contribute to poorer quality of life as we age.”

The IAM+ index works well for both men and women and shows differences by race and education. The index can provide insight into steps that can be taken to help everyone as they age:

• Early intervention: By identifying health decline in midlife, the IAM+ enables earlier interventions to prevent disability and promote healthy aging.
• Workplace policy: Employers and policymakers can use the IAM+ to design safer, more supportive work environments and retraining programs for older workers.
• Retirement planning: The index highlights the need for flexible retirement policies that account for differences in aging trajectories, especially for those exposed to health-harming work environments.
• Targeted public health tactics: The IAM+ can help identify groups at risk of accelerated aging due to structural inequalities, guiding targeted public health and social support efforts.

“This measure offers an exciting new tool for researchers to use as we work to isolate the most important factors that best help us stave off health problems until the latest stages of life,” Carr said.

Carr is also a faculty affiliate for FSU’s Pepper Institute on Aging and Public Policy, which is housed in FSU’s College of Social Sciences and Public Policy along with the Claude Pepper Center.

For more information about FSU’s Claude Pepper Center, visit claudepeppercenter.fsu.edu.

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More than 4.4 million adults in Florida are family caregivers who primarily provide unpaid and unsupported care to older parents, spouses and other relatives. As Florida’s population ages, with one in five residents expected to be 65 or older by 2030, caregivers and families continue to need access to essential resources and information for support more than ever before.

To help address this need, AARP Florida and Florida State University’s Claude Pepper Center organized the inaugural 2025 Florida Caregiving Summit. The event brought together leading policymakers, specialists in aging and disability services, and workforce development professionals to discuss the future of family caregiving in Florida.

Attendees heard from FSU President Richard McCullough and FSU Claude Pepper Center Director Dawn Carr before attending the three panel discussions.

“The variation of what caregiving looks like is really broad,” McCullough said. “The things that are going on here at this summit are very, very important — the policies, the organizations, the policymakers — you are the ones that are helping families to get these resources so they can get the care for their loved ones.”

Held at FSU’s Jim Moran Building in downtown Tallahassee, the Tuesday, Nov. 4 event included discussion panels and a resource fair, recognizing the essential contributions caregivers make to their families and the broader economy. More than 200 people also attended the event virtually.

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Florida State University and the Claude Pepper Foundation invite the community to a special celebration marking the 125th anniversary of Senator Claude Pepper, a towering figure in Florida and national history.

The celebration will take place from 8 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., Friday, Sept. 12, 2025, at the Broad Auditorium, Claude Pepper Center Building, on the FSU campus.

The commemorative event will feature a keynote address by James C. Clark, senior lecturer at the University of Central Florida, and an engaging lineup of presentations exploring Sen. Pepper’s profound influence on Florida State University, his namesake library and museum, and his enduring legacy in public service, health care and advocacy for the elderly.

A celebration will also feature the first public screening of the new documentary, “The Legacy of Claude Denson Pepper,” chronicling the life and work of one of the most respected voices in 20th-century American politics.

Attendees will enjoy a continental breakfast beginning at 8 a.m., followed by presentations and a buffet luncheon at noon.

This event offers a unique opportunity to honor and reflect on Sen. Pepper’s decades of service and the values he championed, many of which continue to shape public policy and academic life at Florida State University and beyond.

Seating is limited, and early response is encouraged. RSVP by Sept. 1, 2025.

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Florida State University’s Claude Pepper Center has launched the Translational Data Platform, an innovative digital tool designed to provide interactive maps and dashboards that integrate data on behavior, occupation, health and economy across Florida’s aging populations.

After a year-long soft launch to gather feedback and refine its features, the platform is now available to the public and will continue to grow.

“The Translational Data Platform is revolutionizing how we understand and address the needs of older adults, providing unprecedented access to real-time data and insights that empower policymakers, researchers, and families to make informed decisions,” said Dawn Carr, director of the Claude Pepper Center.

The platform allows users to explore data in real-time to provide insights into matters specific to Florida. The state’s demographics — home to one of the largest concentrations of older adults in the U.S. — make Florida a key focus for studying national aging trends.

“The Translational Data Platform is revolutionizing how we understand and address the needs of older adults, providing unprecedented access to real-time data and insights that empower policymakers, researchers, and families to make informed decisions.”

– Dawn Carr, director of FSU’s Claude Pepper Center

“We’ve reached out to various stakeholders to find out what we could do to best support those making decisions about older adults and their well-being, but also families of older people in Florida,” Carr said.

The Translational Data Platform has been used to create a map focused on social isolation risk in adults over 65 to identify hotspots across the state which require attention. The map has already been presented to organizations such as the Florida Department of Elder Affairs to help policymakers focus their work.

“The main focus of our work is age and aging, and how they interact with health and policy,” said Fabio Correa, a research engineer at the Pepper Center. “Our maps and dashboards are constantly updated with the latest public data from authoritative sources, including our own peer-reviewed research.”

Built using Esri ArcGIS and Microsoft Power BI, the platform simplifies complex datasets. The state’s supportive legislative climate has allowed the Claude Pepper Center to utilize data from agencies across Florida.

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Florida State University researchers and a guest speaker from the University of Pennsylvania considered the challenges and opportunities that technology and artificial intelligence present for aging populations in holistic health care during a panel discussion hosted by the FSU Institute for Successful Longevity.

The Oct. 9 event, held at the Tallahassee Senior Center, was part of FSU Discovery Days, a week that celebrates FSU research, creativity and innovation.

“Events like this allow us to connect directly with the community, hear their perspectives and better understand their needs,” Interim Director of the ISL Zhe He said. “Technology can enhance the quality of life for older adults, but it’s essential that we address their unique challenges and concerns. This event is not just about showcasing advancements — it’s about ensuring that innovations in technology are accessible, user-friendly and aligned with the real needs of the people we aim to support.”

Special guest George Demiris, the Mary Alice Bennett University Professor and Penn Integrated Knowledge University Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, kicked off the event with his talk “Aging and Technology: Challenges and Opportunities.” Demiris highlighted research focusing on the various ways technology can support aging in place while addressing issues such as social isolation and health monitoring.

Demiris spoke about how artificial intelligence and wearable smart technology can be integrated into smart homes, allowing health care providers and family to collect integral health information about aging patients that can be used to help monitor behavior and health patterns seamlessly and unobtrusively.

“This technology can help us understand how someone is living in their own home,” Demiris said. “We can see if someone becomes more restless at night, or that they move around more or less frequently in their own home.”

This kind of data collection can provide care teams with the information to create tailored, holistic care plans to best fit the needs of each patient.

Following Demiris’ talk, he joined the panel of FSU researchers including He, Director of FSU’s Claude Pepper Center and Associate Professor of Sociology Dawn Carr, FSU Professor of Information Mia Liza A. Lustria and Professor of Sociology and Director of the Pepper Institute on Aging and Public Policy Miles Taylor.

The panel answered questions posed by community members surrounding data collection integrity, levels of patient care and current research.

“We need to recognize that aging is diverse, and technology must be adaptable to meet the unique needs of each individual,” He said.

Later in the day, Demiris also gave the talk “Artificial Intelligence and Aging: Examples and Lessons Learned” at FSU’s Claude Pepper Center.

The FSU panelists are part of a research team awarded a $1 million grant earlier this year from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to develop LabGenie, a tool to help older patients better understand the results of medical lab health tests.

FSU Discovery Days events continue through Saturday, Oct. 12. For the full calendar of events, visit discoverydays.fsu.edu.

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FSU’s Opening Minds through Art (FSU-OMA) Program will celebrate its first anniversary this month. The program promotes autonomy and dignity through opportunities for creative self-expression and social engagement for people with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia.

The two-part celebration includes a showcase and a workshop.

The FSU-OMA program will showcase accomplishments from its inaugural year, featuring work from artists living with dementia and their intern partners from 10-11:30 a.m. Friday, Oct. 4, at the Claude Pepper Center. Attendees can meet some of the artists and interns, hear about the program’s first year highlights and view the artwork gallery.

The workshop will take place from 10 a.m.-noon, Saturday, Oct. 5, at the Claude Pepper Center, offering an art-making event for those in the community to experience an OMA art project. Attendees will be guided through the art-making process, and the result will be an art piece they can take home. Attendees are asked to sign-up for the workshop in advance.

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September is Healthy Aging Month but at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at Florida State University healthy aging is a year-round pursuit. 

Housed in FSU’s Claude Pepper Center, OLLI extends its reach beyond campus through a host of programs, clubs, group travel and courses all aimed at helping adults over 50 continue to learn and grow.  

The goal tying OLLI’s offerings together is to keep older adults engaged, said Fran Conaway, who has been an active OLLI participant and volunteer since 2011.  

Founded in 1991, OLLI addresses three main needs for its members in offering programming that challenges them mentally, physically and provides opportunities for social interaction.   

“We have fun while accepting the challenges,” Conaway said of OLLI’s membership. “We enjoy the courses in ways that perhaps you might not when you’re an undergraduate or graduate student. There are no grades, no tests and no required reading. Our instructors love us because we take the work seriously and we’re unafraid to challenge them.” 

Conaway added: “In addition to academics, we take trips. We have a walking club, two book clubs, social opportunities and travel around the world. Through it all, we laugh together.”  

With a rolling membership that hovers around 1,000, OLLI’s fall, spring and summer courses are perhaps its biggest draw. About half of the courses are taught by former and current FSU faculty and researchers, while career professionals from outside academia also bring their expertise to bear.  

The breadth of subject matter offered semester-to-semester mirrors what one might find in a college course bulletin, including physics, advanced mathematics, technology, photography, art appreciation, journalism and theater. 

Asked some of the more memorable courses she’s taken, Conaway provided a list of 34 titles, including The History of Greed, The Music of Paul Simon, Buddhist Meditation, 

Epigenetics, and Putin’s Russia: The Less You Know, the Better You Sleep.  

“It’s a wild, wide array of courses taught through the years,” said Conaway. “I am hoping for something soon on ChatGPT so we can learn how to use it ourselves or identify when somebody else uses it unfairly so you can call foul on it.”  

Robert Watkins, a professor of mathematics at Keiser University teaches “The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party” which analyses Lewis’ Carroll’s classic novel “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” through a multi-disciplinary lens. In addition to being an author and poet, Carroll was a math professor at Oxford University in England; his works encompass theology, logic and a host of other fields.  

Watkins takes full advantage of that variety by using Carroll’s work as a launch point for an expanse of topics. Like any true English tea party, Watkins offers tea, crumpets, savories and sweets, served on ornate China tea sets each class.  

“It’s an insanity all its own,” Watkins said of the tea party.  

Watkins is set to teach the course for his eighth time this spring and said, in addition to a lifelong love of teaching, the OLLI students are what keep him coming back.  

“They are the best students I’ve ever had,” he said. “They are all there for intrinsic reasons. There are no grades. They aren’t earning a certificate. They bring an interest, and thoughtful, well-formed opinions to each class.”  

Whether it’s through a trip to Florence, Italy, or a meeting of the Spanish Club in Tallahassee, OLLI participants find a community and often a purpose, said OLLI Program Coordinator Terry Aaronson.  

“I had one woman tell me that OLLI saved her life,” Aaronson said. “People retire and they often aren’t sure what to do. At OLLI, there are so many offerings, so many things you can do to stay engaged socially, mentally and physically.”  

A combination of membership fees, donations and endowments from the Bernard Osher Foundation help provide OLLI’s budget. Aaronson also credited FSU and the Pepper Center for laying the foundation for OLLI to make an impact by providing crucial elements like classrooms and meeting space. 

“Without these things we wouldn’t be able to run the program,” she said, before noting that OLLI’s impact permeates the community. “Our members have formed their own weekly meeting groups and social circles. OLLI is a big part of the community,” 

Conaway echoed Aaronson, saying that lifelong friendships are a feature of OLLI and that starts with its members.

“If there is fun to be had, we are going to make it happen,” she said.   

For more information about OLLI, visit olli.fsu.edu.  

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September is Healthy Aging Month, and with America’s population aging faster than ever, it is an appropriate time to commemorate the occasion and FSU’s place at the vanguard of healthy aging research. 

In the 1920s, people over the age of 65 accounted for less than 5% of the U.S. population. Today, according to the U.S. Census, seniors are the fastest-growing age group, representing 17% of the U.S. population. In Florida, that percentage sits at 21.6% and is projected to hit 25% in 2030.  

As the percentage of aging Americans grows, researchers at Florida State University are seizing opportunities the trend affords. Thanks to an emphasis on age-related research that began decades ago, FSU is now home to a sprawling, interdisciplinary research infrastructure spanning colleges and departments that facilitates and fuels faculty collaboration in the field. 

That robust network of institutes, centers, partnerships and initiatives related to healthy aging has made FSU a national leader in the field. The work goes well beyond studying the physical aging process, said FSU Vice President for Research Stacey Patterson.  

“Our faculty members are finding solutions to a variety of challenges individuals face as they age – physical health, emotional and social well-being, technology challenges, workplace issues and more. This work enhances the lives of not only Floridians but people across the globe.” 

FSU’s roots in the field date back to 1959 when the university’s Director of Libraries, Orwin Bush, wrote to U.S. Sen. Claude Pepper asking if he would make the library home to his official papers and records. In time, Pepper — whom Time Magazine later dubbed “the spokesman for the elderly” — would facilitate multiple projects at FSU aimed toward the health of the elderly.  

Today, the Pepper Institute on Aging and Public Policy and the Claude Pepper Center share their namesake’s mission with researchers from across campus. The College of Medicine, the College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, the College of Social Work, the College of Arts and Sciences, the College of Communication and Information and the College of Nursing support age-related research while initiatives like the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute provide services for older adults in the community.  

That network of interdisciplinary collaboration is proving to be a vital pipeline for innovative research and one that has pushed FSU to the forefront in the field.  

Miles Taylor, professor and director of the Pepper Institute, which is housed in the College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, said healthy aging is a field that demands an interdisciplinary approach. 

“We know that health doesn’t just mean physical well-being; it’s also emotional, social, psychological and financial,” she said. “I am seeing people in geography, environmental health, urban planning, economics and social work really engaging in this work in ways that are really interesting and impactful.”  

Along with Pepper Institute researcher Assistant Professor Katy Cao, Taylor is part of a team working with a developer in Amelia Island, Florida, to examine community design with the needs of older adults at its center. In considering factors such as socialization, walkability and proximity to health care, the development is drawing upon the expertise of multiple disciplines. Taylor pointed to it as one of many examples of work that requires a broad base of knowledge to achieve the aim of a thriving older population.  

Dawn Carr is the director of the Claude Pepper Center and a gerontologist whose work focuses on health and aging. Carr said FSU owes much of its renowned reputation for age-related research to a campuswide commitment to producing research with tangible results. 

To that end, Carr is working on a project studying the associations between work environments and physical and cognitive health in addition to other aspects of wellbeing.

“We are examining the problems themselves, but we are also looking at interventions to reduce those problems to directly improve quality of life,” she said. “Research for research’s sake is not enough. Writing research, getting peer-reviewed and getting published is important, but we have to take the next step.”

“Research for research’s sake is not enough. Writing research, getting peer-reviewed and getting published is important, but we have to take the next step.”

— Dawn Carr, director of the Claude Pepper Center

That next step requires findings to be translated into actionable policies and practices. 

“That means not just identifying things like risk factors but steps to reduce them,” Carr said. “Our job and our responsibility lies in serving society, making it better, making it healthier.”   

That is a sentiment shared by Tim Chapin, dean of FSU’s College of Social Sciences and Public Policy. Chapin said FSU is uniquely positioned to deliver on this imperative because of Florida’s status as a mecca for older adults but also its location in Tallahassee.  

“Our location in the state capital of the third-most populated state and one of the most dynamic economic systems on the globe perfectly positions us to inform and shape public policy,” he said. “We work closely with government, private firms, nonprofits and community groups to create policies that can advance the health and happiness of older adults throughout the state.”   

David Springer, dean of the College of Social Work, said what has emerged at FSU is a cycle in which innovative research is attracting more talented researchers in the field, which attracts more talented students, which fuels more innovative research, all of which helps attract funding to fuel the process.  

“When you have leading scholars securing funding for this research and working in partnership with the communities of which FSU is a part, that’s when cutting-edge research happens,” he said. “FSU is world-renowned for its research on aging and gerontology, and with the health initiatives we continue to see funded at FSU, we are uniquely positioned to become even more of a leader.”  

Springer noted that the continued emphasis on results-driven research will remain the bedrock of this work. 

“That is the common thread of the work happening here — it has real-world implications for vulnerable populations,” he said. “That is our mission: to produce research that advances knowledge and serves communities and individuals. We are here to do both.”

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