# Feasibility of Linking the Occupational Exposome to Alzheimer's Disease Neuropathology

> **NIH NIH R21** · UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON · 2022 · $226,590

## Abstract

The occupational exposome encompasses all occupational exposures occurring over the life
course that affect health. How Alzheimer's disease (AD) biological processes, such as AD
neuropathology, are impacted by the occupational exposome is limited. Evidence suggests work
and one's working life is linked to structural brain changes and poorer health and health
disparities. Yet capturing the occupational exposome has been technically challenging, leading
to few practical approaches within health disparity and AD research. But methodological
advancements are possible.
 Lifecourse public data tracing methods holds promise as a novel way to quantify the
occupational exposome, creating “new” historic databases in the process that are linkable to AD
biobanks. Such methods are typically reserved for genealogical research and are underutilized
in connecting social determinants to study health disparities. These methods involve
systematically searching publicly available historical records and extracting information across
one's life including US Census records, city directories, military records, death records, and
newspapers sources. Never before has the occupational exposome been linked in this way to
brain tissue and related neuropathology—the `gold standard' for diagnosing AD.
 Establishing a feasible way to link the occupational exposome to AD biological outcomes
may unlock new widows in understanding the drivers of this incurable disease; providing insight
into dosage and timing, and uncovering the key mediating and moderating factors involved. Yet
the groundwork to uncover these mechanistic underpinnings is underdeveloped.
 The present proposal is an initial step towards understanding how working conditions and
contexts over the life course impact AD brain health. We propose to study the feasibility of
capturing occupational histories using lifecourse public data tracing methods, crosswalk to
established high stress job characteristic exposures in the Occupational Information Network
database (O*NET), and append these exposures to our existing multi-ADRC brain bank sample
to explore associations with AD neuropathology. The overarching hypothesis is that public data
tracing methods can be used to reliably construct valid occupational histories, and be linked to
occupational exposures to study the role of work in AD brain health disparities.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10525744
- **Project number:** 1R21AG079277-01
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON
- **Principal Investigator:** William Ryan Powell
- **Activity code:** R21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $226,590
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2022-08-15 → 2024-04-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10525744

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10525744, Feasibility of Linking the Occupational Exposome to Alzheimer's Disease Neuropathology (1R21AG079277-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-26 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10525744. Licensed CC0.

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