# PLAN: Dementia Literacy Education and Navigation for Korean Elders with Probable Dementia and their Caregivers

> **NIH NIH R01** · JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY · 2021 · $741,825

## Abstract

Despite a higher prevalence of dementia, ethnic minority elders in the U.S. are underdiagnosed and at greater
risk of not receiving appropriate care than their white counterparts. Early detection of dementia allows for a
transition to early dementia care for community-dwelling elderly that may delay or slow deterioration of
cognitive functions and functional disabilities and enable families to adequately plan for the potential
challenges of dementia caregiving. Currently, little is known about how to effectively identify undiagnosed
individuals with probable dementia in community-based settings that serve diverse racial and ethnic minorities
and how to transition them into the health care system for necessary diagnostic follow-up and care for
dementia. This proposed research addresses the critical gaps by focusing on dementia assessments and
follow-up in one of the fastest-growing ethnic minority populations—Korean Americans (KAs). Our
collaborative, interdisciplinary research team has more than 10 years of community-based, participatory
research experience in the KA community and has laid the groundwork for the current application. In particular,
we have conducted the first community-based epidemiological study which estimated the prevalence of
dementia among KA elders. Moreover, we successfully trained bilingual community health workers (CHWs) and
obtained evidence to support the feasibility and efficacy of using CHWs to assess dementia in community-
residing Korean elders and promote linkage to medical service for dementia among KA elders with probable
dementia while improving caregiver psychological outcomes. To this end, the goals of our study are to identify
community-residing Korean elderly with probable dementia and to test the effects of dementia literacy training
and navigation assistance by CHWs to transition affected Korean elders and their caregivers into the
healthcare system for adequate diagnostic follow-up and care. CHWs have been used to eliminate health
disparities in resource-poor communities with positive outcomes. The adoption of trained CHWs for cognitive
health is a new strategic approach which could be highly applicable to many linguistic and/or socially-isolated
racial/ethnic minority communities with limited resources.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10225296
- **Project number:** 5R01AG062649-03
- **Recipient organization:** JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** HAE-RA HAN
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $741,825
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2019-08-01 → 2024-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10225296

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10225296, PLAN: Dementia Literacy Education and Navigation for Korean Elders with Probable Dementia and their Caregivers (5R01AG062649-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10225296. Licensed CC0.

---

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