Improving Inclusivity of Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias Research for Asian Americans and Latinx through Nationally Representative Hybrid Sampling.

NIH RePORTER · NIH · R01 · $979,196 · view on reporter.nih.gov ↗

Abstract

ABSTRACT Racial/ethnic minorities are projected to be a major portion of the aging U.S. population. Two of the strategic research directions of the National Institute on Aging (NIA) are: 1) improving understanding of Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias (ADRD) and 2) understanding health disparities to improve the health of diverse older adult populations as evidenced by NOT-AG-21-033. While achieving these goals for racial/ethnic disparities requires data, national aging research data are absent beyond (mostly White) Latinx, non-Latinx Whites, and non-Latinx Blacks. Collecting research data under the traditional sampling framework is resource intensive and prohibitively so for granular minority groups. In response to NOT-AG-21-033 that addresses this gap, this study aims to improve inclusivity in ADRD research data by introducing Hybrid Sampling (HybS) for building a nationally representative panel of middle-age and older adults with an oversample of seven granular minority groups (Afro Latinx, non-Afro Latinx, Chinese, Asian Indians, Filipinos, Koreans and Vietnamese) through the push-to-Web method. As an extension of address-based sampling (ABS) and respondent driven sampling (RDS), HybS starts from a probability sample of seeds and exploits existing social networks for participant recruitment through chain-referrals, capturing those who, otherwise, are difficult to reach, while maintaining the probability sampling principles. To do so, we apply the push-to-Web method that also offers an option of participating over phone to lower the costs and the constraints associated with the time, geography and interview language. Racial/ethnic minorities are particularly well suited for the push-to-Web HybS, as they are known to form tight in-group social networks and to access the Web at a high level. For managing such a panel survey, we will also develop a sample management system and make it publicly available. Capitalizing on the connectedness of participants, this study will measure social networks from multiple angles and examine the role of various social networks on ADRD risks and racial/ethnic disparities within. This study will collect data using the same methods across racial/ethnic groups, which will eliminate methodological confounders in examining disparities. Although rare, there are scientifically rigorous and well-established population-based data about minorities and aging research data. We will triangulate data from these existing studies with data from the proposed study’s panel through multiple frame estimation in order to improve its representation properties. By developing a practical data collection framework and providing tools to implement studies under this framework, outcomes of this study will enable the research community to address the needs for ADRD data on granular racial/ethnic minorities. Increased inclusivity of research data will inform policy makers to develop nuanced ADRD prevention and intervention strategies...

Key facts

NIH application ID
10798560
Project number
1R01AG082080-01A1
Recipient
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN AT ANN ARBOR
Principal Investigator
Sung-Hee Lee
Activity code
R01
Funding institute
NIH
Fiscal year
2024
Award amount
$979,196
Award type
1
Project period
2024-04-01 → 2028-12-31