Our commitment to serving Georgia grows each year, as does our impact on the millions of families, entrepreneurs, and communities who live here. Driven by our land-grant mission, UGA’s Public Service and Outreach units tirelessly supported entrepreneurs and communities across Georgia during the past year. The Small Business Development Center helped launch nearly 500 new businesses in 2021, and the Carl Vinson Institute of Government gained national recognition for its efforts to expand broadband internet access.
Our service and outreach work, grounded in our missions of teaching and research, contributed to UGA’s record-breaking $7.4 billion impact on the state of Georgia in FY 2021.
The Rural Engagement Research Program expands our impact in Georgia and addresses economic and medical barriers in rural communities. For example, the program supports the Cognitive Aging Research and Education (CARE) Center in the College of Public Health, which offers dementia risk reduction and support for people with dementia and their caregivers throughout Georgia.
More than 6.5 million Americans live with Alzheimer’s disease or related dementia. That number is expected to double in the next 30 years. Individuals with these diseases and their caregivers must manage a complex illness and navigate a complicated health care system. Most dementia-related care is provided in major cities—often out of reach for rural and even some urban communities.
The CARE Center makes these new resources more accessible for all Georgians, whether through an Archway Partnership or Extension office, or even some local doctors’ offices.
This program, housed in the College of Public Health’s Institute of Gerontology, is a collaboration with UGA Extension, the Archway Partnership, and the Augusta University-University of Georgia Medical Partnership. It’s supported through external grants, including one from the National Academy of Medicine, and internal seed grants from the Rural Engagement Faculty Workshop and the Presidential Interdisciplinary Seed Grant program.