# Advance Care Planning in the Dementias: Culturally-Tailored Caregiver Education for African Americans

> **NIH NIH R44** · COLLINGE AND ASSOCIATES · 2021 · $661,330

## Abstract

African Americans face significantly greater risk of Alzheimer’s Disease and other dementias than white
Americans but receive disproportionately less attention to dementia screening and support, resulting in a silent
epidemic in this underserved population. Advance Care Treatment Plan (ACT-Plan) is a culturally-tailored
caregiver education program for African American dementia caregivers with decisional responsibility that was
previously evaluated in an R01 study. The program comprises four 1-hour group sessions of instruction with
interactive exercises and homework. In a randomized controlled trial (R01AG043485), outcomes included
significant improvements in caregiver knowledge and self-efficacy in advance care treatment decision-making
for loved ones with dementia. While found effective, the above intervention was delivered in person by content
experts, which is neither practical nor cost-effective for wide dissemination of this much-needed form of
support. Thus alternative means of delivery are desirable. In African American communities many faith-based
organizations maintain active health ministries, making them a natural resource with personnel that provide
valuable service to members of their congregations and other community members. This FastTrack project will
produce and evaluate a self-directed multimedia version of the ACT-Plan program, to be called “ACT-Plan(m)”,
that can be facilitated by local, non-expert volunteers from health ministries of faith-based organizations, and
others. If successful, this will enable wide dissemination of this form of caregiver education in African American
communities. Phase I Aims: 1. Produce a prototype module of the ACT-Plan(m) program. 2. Conduct usability
testing with three test groups using the prototype module. 3. Assess usability data and caregiver outcomes.
Phase II Aims: 1. Produce all modules of the ACT-Plan(m) program. 2. Produce website for streaming and
downloads of program materials. 3. Assess impact of ACT-Plan(m) on caregiver knowledge and self-efficacy in
a randomized controlled trial. We hypothesize that caregivers receiving ACT-Plan(m) will attain significant
improvements in knowledge and self-efficacy outcomes comparable to those of the original ACT-Plan program.
Commercial product. ACT-Plan(m) will be a standardized, evidence-based caregiver education program for
use by faith-based and secular health advocacy organizations serving the African American community, as
well as private individuals. The program will be accessible online with video streaming and downloadable print
materials, and in hard copy format (DVD, flash drive, and printed materials) for low-resource settings,
portability, lending libraries, and users without web access. This new resource will empower community-based
health advocacy organizations to better address dementia care in underserved African American communities.
It will be the first evidence-based, culturally-tailored, self-directed multimedia dementia care...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10201514
- **Project number:** 5R44AG065095-03
- **Recipient organization:** COLLINGE AND ASSOCIATES
- **Principal Investigator:** GLORIA J BONNER
- **Activity code:** R44 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $661,330
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2019-08-01 → 2023-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10201514

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10201514, Advance Care Planning in the Dementias: Culturally-Tailored Caregiver Education for African Americans (5R44AG065095-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10201514. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*