Aging, Technology, Innovation, and its Impact on Families

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Dr. Tim Killian’s research interests are generally focused on social connectedness of older adults and how social and community contexts are related to health and well-being. Tim’s doctoral studies examined perceptions of normative obligations for adult children to provide resources and caregiving to their aging parents and step-parents. Dr. Killian was able to transfer that focus on research into secondary analyses of nationally representative data to develop typologies of both upstream and downstream transfers of monetary and caregiving resources between older adults and their adult children. As his career has continued at the University of Arkansas, his focus has shifted to the community context of aging and, in particular, how aging and social connections vary across the spectrum of rurality. Dr. Killian has published a paper with a recent Masters graduate on the relationship between ill-being and its association to engagement in leisure activities within long-term care using data that were mostly collected in rural long-term care facilities. In collaboration with colleagues including nursing faculty at the University of Arkansas, Dr. Killian has also used secondary analyses of data from the nationally representative Health and Retirement Study to examine emergency preparedness of older adults to increase their resilience and recovery outcomes during and subsequent to disasters. His research in progress continues to focus on emergency preparedness and post-disaster recovery among older adults, as well as on the formation of romantic relationships of older adults.