Volunteering to be a Research Participant

The Institute of Gerontology is exploring the feasibility of establishing a Research Pool of older adults who live near The University of Georgia and who are interested in possibly participating in research studies conducted by members of the Faculty of Gerontology or students they are supervising. This Research Pool has NOT yet been implemented. At present, members of the Faculty of Gerontology and students conducting aging research must recruit on their own for research participants. We believe an important need can be met by having the Institute of Gerontology operate a Research Pool. We hope to officially launch this new and exciting effort sometime during future academic years. Watch for an announcement on this website.

Many older adults do not want to be solicited for anything, research included! One way we have come up with to meet this reasonable concern is to generate a quarterly newsletter about pending research opportunities, and to mail that newsletter to members of the Research Pool. That newsletter would describe those research projects in need of research volunteers, describe the research, eligibility requirements, remuneration, etc., and would contain contact information for the researcher. If a recipient of the newsletter is interested in participating, then they would contact the researcher to make their identity known. This would eliminate volunteers from being inundated with solicitations, and would preserve the confidentiality of the identities and addresses for the pool of volunteers.

If you are interested in enrolling in the Research Pool, check this website often for the formal announcement of the program's establishment.

If you have questions, comments, or ideas about establishing and operating the Research Pool, we would be happy to hear from you. Please write:

Research Pool Coordinator
The University of Georgia Institute of Gerontology
255 E. Hancock Avenue
Athens, GA 30602-5775
Phone: (706) 425-3222
Fax: (706) 425-3221