# Recruiting multiethnic populations to preclinical Alzheimers disease trials

> **NIH NIH R21** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-IRVINE · 2022 · $250,219

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
Preclinical Alzheimer’s disease clinical trials enroll cognitively normal participants who are willing to undergo
disease biomarker testing, learn the results, and take an investigational drug (or placebo) if those results indicate
that they are at increased risk for disease. Like traditional trials in Alzheimer’s disease dementia, these trials
require participants to enroll with a study partner, a person who can attend visits with the participant and report
about any changes in the participant’s cognitive or functional ability. These trials face difficult recruitment,
especially in enrolling samples representative of the nation’s diverse population. Understanding potential
differential attitudes toward the unique requirements in preclinical AD trials will be essential to instructing
inclusive recruitment, enrollment, and conduct of preclinical AD trials.
This project will examine potential differential attitudes toward preclinical AD trials among African
American/Black, Asian American, Hispanic, and non-Hispanic White older cognitively unimpaired individuals.
The project will focus on two key requirements in these trials: biomarker disclosure and the study partner
requirement. There is strong rationale to hypothesize that these groups may differ in their attitudes toward these
requirements. This includes our previous demonstration of differential attitudes toward the requirements based
on whether an individual would enroll with a spouse as a study partner and the enrollment patterns of dyads in
the first preclinical AD trial, the Anti-Amyloid treatment in Asymptomatic AD (A4) Study. In A4, 58% of non-
Hispanic White participants enrolled with a spouse study partner, compared to 45% for Hispanic, 46% for Asian,
and 27% for African American/Black participants.
This project will provide critical data toward improving preclinical AD trial protocol designs and requirements,
as well as practices in disclosure, to ensure diverse and inclusive recruitment that respects potential cultural
differences in attitudes toward the requirements of these important studies.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10518289
- **Project number:** 1R21AG074371-01A1
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-IRVINE
- **Principal Investigator:** Joshua Grill
- **Activity code:** R21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $250,219
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2022-08-15 → 2024-04-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10518289

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10518289, Recruiting multiethnic populations to preclinical Alzheimers disease trials (1R21AG074371-01A1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10518289. Licensed CC0.

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