# National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health): Wave VI Cognition and Early Risk Factors for Dementia Project

> **NIH NIH U01** · UNIV OF NORTH CAROLINA CHAPEL HILL · 2022 · $1,546,311

## Abstract

Project Summary
Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias (ADRD) are projected to affect 14 million Americans by 2050. To
date, though, research on the signs and symptoms of ADRD has been sparse in early midlife populations,
especially at the national level. It is crucial to conduct such research because early changes in cognitive
functioning and the accumulation of risk factors for ADRD can begin decades before concrete signs and
symptoms emerge. The challenging search for the causes of ADRD has made it clear that prospective and
comprehensive data—including detailed social, biological, and health measurements across the life course—
are needed to identify key predictors of ADRD. As such, the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult
Health (Add Health) provides an extraordinary opportunity to study the early origins of cognitive
functioning/change and ADRD risk in a nationally representative cohort that has been followed since
adolescence and will be in their mid-40s in the next wave of data collection (Wave VI). The overall goal of this
project is to collect and disseminate critical data related to cognitive, physical, and sensory functioning in
conjunction with the Add Health Wave VI Core Project to facilitate identification of early risk factors for later life
ADRD. Adding such rich measures to Wave VI of Add Health will make possible tracking of cognitive, sensory,
and physical functioning across the life course; coupled with the testing of biological risk markers, it will also lay
the foundation for detecting signs of cognitive impairment and ADRD risk in early midlife. These new data,
when combined with Add Health's existing 25-year collection of extraordinarily rich multi-level and longitudinal
measures and its new Wave VI data, will also aid in the scientific community's understanding of the interplay of
social, behavioral, and biological factors leading to ADRD in later life. Moreover, because Add Health is a very
diverse sample, adding these data to Wave VI will greatly increase understanding of cognitive, physical, and
sensory functioning within health disparity populations. The project's specific aims are to: 1) Collect new in-
depth, in-person assessments of cognitive functioning in early midlife for a nationally representative and
racially/ethnically diverse subsample of participants in Wave VI; 2) Collect automated, (largely) web-based
measures of cognition in early midlife for all participants in Wave VI and compare them with our in-person
measures of cognition to assess their feasibility and value; 3) Include assessments of physical and sensory
functioning in early midlife for Wave VI participants of Add Health; 4) Test for biological markers of ADRD risk
and cognitive function in early midlife; 5) Clean, document, disseminate, promote, and support the data
collected in this project for the scientific community. All told, this project will collect and disseminate innovative
data to thousands of researchers that will fa...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10328574
- **Project number:** 5U01AG071450-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIV OF NORTH CAROLINA CHAPEL HILL
- **Principal Investigator:** Allison E Aiello
- **Activity code:** U01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $1,546,311
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2021-01-15 → 2025-12-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10328574

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10328574, National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health): Wave VI Cognition and Early Risk Factors for Dementia Project (5U01AG071450-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10328574. Licensed CC0.

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