Engagement Core

NIH RePORTER · NIH · U19 · $7,611,842 · view on reporter.nih.gov ↗

Abstract

Dementia disparities are a major and rapidly escalating public health threat. For instance, Black and Latinx adults are up to three times as likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease (AD) compared to non-Latinx whites (NLW), yet they remain greatly underrepresented in research. Further, underrepresented populations (URPs; e.g., Black, Latinx; low SES) also bear a disparate burden of biological and sociocultural vulnerabilities that confer increased dementia risk, but dementia etiologies and the role of such vulnerabilities remain poorly understood. In addition, community-engaged research (CER) is an evidence-based approach for successful URP recruitment, but has lacked scalability for broad implementation. Further, the lack of an ethnoculturally/linguistically diverse, culturally competent dementia workforce may further exacerbate these challenges. Thus, the 2019 update to the National Plan to Address AD and the NIA Advisory Council (NOT-AG-18-047) have recommended the prioritization of Health Disparities research in AD. ADNI4’s Engagement Core will address these urgent priorities through: 1) increasing the engagement of underrepresented populations in ADNI4; 2) cultivating a diverse, culturally competent workforce to work with URPs; and 3) investigating ethnocultural disparities in dementia. To this end, the Engagement Core will achieve these aims by deploying a scalable, intensive, and culturally-informed CER approach for ~20,000+ individuals (50-60% from URPs) to complete the digital screener to identify 4,000 participants with AD blood biomarkers, followed by either in-person (n = 500; 50-60% URPs) or remote (remainder of the 20,000 not enrolled in clinic) longitudinal evaluations. This Core will work closely with Project 1 and the other ADNI4 Cores to support their aims and assure the full and immersive participation of URPs in all study components. Our comprehensive, multi-faceted plan includes: (1) a CER-based Digital Engagement Campaign; (2) a Diverse Engagement Team, including Community Research Liaisons to promote URP recruitment through community-based engagement with local community-based organizations (CBOs), and Community Research Navigators to promote retention/engagement via providing navigational support to all participants and study partners; (3) Diversity Recruitment Hub Sites (n = 20) that will receive additional fiscal and instrumental support for URP recruitment; (4) Community Partnerships (e.g., national and local CBOs) that will be facilitated through our Community-Science Partnership Board; (5) Culturally-informed Methods to address barriers to URP recruitment/engagement (e.g., trust, burden) and provide better ethnocultural characterization of the sample; and (6) Workforce Training to enhance cultural competency of all ADNI investigators and staff, and provide mentored training to a total 15 ADNI4 Scholars over five years (URP trainees and early career investigators). The activities and goals detailed in this Core are deemed...

Key facts

NIH application ID
10704662
Project number
5U19AG024904-17
Recipient
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE/RES/EDU
Principal Investigator
MONICA G. RIVERA-MINDT
Activity code
U19
Funding institute
NIH
Fiscal year
2023
Award amount
$7,611,842
Award type
5
Project period
2004-09-30 → 2028-07-31