# Core D: Cognition, Exposure, and Covariates (CEC) Data Core

> **NIH NIH P01** · BOSTON UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CAMPUS · 2024 · $697,534

## Abstract

COGNITION, EXPOSURE, AND COVARIATES DATA CORE SUMMARY
The TIME-AD project will use multiple data sources to enhance understanding of how AD/ADRD risk is affected
by four high priority risk factor categories: alcohol use; depression and anti-depressant medications; prevention
and treatment of hearing and vision impairments; and social isolation. The Cognition, Exposure, and Covariates
(CEC) Data Core is an essential component of TIME-AD and creates critical synergies to make this highly
ambitious project feasible. The CEC will provide analytic data sets to each of the four projects, taking advantage
of shared resources for the intensive data cleaning, wrangling, and data set construction efforts required, bringing
together diverse expertise to guide decisions about how to code AD/ADRD-related outcomes, and minimizing
the need for each research team to revisit decisions about coding outcomes or covariates. Two major
methodologic challenges shared across projects will be tackled within the CEC core. The first is identifying
optimal measures of cognitive outcomes and evaluating tradeoffs between measures grounded in clinical
diagnoses versus measures based on repeated cognitive assessments in a research setting. Within clinical
diagnostic categories, additional nuance is involved in handling dementia etiology (e.g., AD, cerebrovascular)
versus all-cause dementia, given the high preponderance of multiple copathologies and limitations of clinical
measures to differentiate specific pathologies. The second major methodologic challenge is identifying
appropriate covariate sets for time-varying exposures and survival models, to maximize control of confounding,
and address selective survival, while avoiding controlling for mediators. Researchers conducting analyses for
the four projects will consult with the CEC to ensure analytic data sets reflect topical expertise and are
appropriate for each project. The CEC Core team includes experts on each of the data sets, investigators with
expertise in methodologic considerations that will guide data set construction (e.g., for emulated trial designs,
clinical and neuropsychological outcomes), and leaders who will ensure cross-project compatibility and
documentation. The CEC will work in close contact with each of the projects (to ensure the data sets meet the
research needs of each project), the Genetic and Policy Data Core (to incorporate the IV measures into the
project data sets), the Analytics Core (to ensure the data set structures match the needs of the proposed
analyses, e.g., for survival models), and the Equity and Dissemination Core (to ensure that diversity related
issues are maintained to the utmost extent within the data sets and coding decisions such as classification of
racial/ethnic identity are consistent with an anti-racist and equity-promoting framework).

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10934712
- **Project number:** 1P01AG082653-01A1
- **Recipient organization:** BOSTON UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CAMPUS
- **Principal Investigator:** Kaitlin B Casaletto
- **Activity code:** P01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $697,534
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2024-09-15 → 2029-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10934712

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10934712, Core D: Cognition, Exposure, and Covariates (CEC) Data Core (1P01AG082653-01A1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10934712. Licensed CC0.

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