# Race/ethnicity and Environmental Stressors: POtential drivers of Dementia and stroke inequities RESPOnD

> **NIH NIH R01** · BOSTON UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CAMPUS · 2024 · $837,826

## Abstract

Excess risk for Alzheimer’s disease-related dementias (ADRD) persists among older Black and Latino adults.
ADRD prevention research has focused on individual vascular risk factors, with less attention to ubiquitous and
modifiable environmental stressors. Environmental stressors may not only determine who is exposed to
vascular risk factors but also how severely those risk factors increase ADRD risk.1 Black and Latino individuals
experience lower access to green space, higher exposure to air pollution, noise, extreme heat, neighborhood
deprivation and violence. Prior evidence examining each of these environmental factors suggest adverse
associations with vascular risk factors for ADRD. Yet, environmental stressors are experienced in combination,
rather than in isolation. It is critical to evaluate the joint impact of multiple domains of environment exposures
as features of the external exposome. Even less is known about the differential impact of environmental
stressors by race/ethnicity and whether these differences account for ADRD disparities. To address this
significant gap, our long-term goal is to quantify the impact of combined environmental stressors on stroke and
vascular risk factors for ADRD. We will leverage resources from 3 U.S cohorts with substantial racial and
ethnic diversity, with up to 20 years of follow-up. In these cohorts, we have individual-level and objectively
assessed cognitive level, cognitive decline, and neuroimaging biomarkers of ADRD in older adulthood. We
hypothesize that individuals exposed to higher environmental stressors (lower access to green space, higher
exposure to air pollution, noise, extreme heat, neighborhood deprivation and violence) will have higher ADRD
risk in older adulthood (Aim 1), and vascular risk burden at midlife (45-64 years; Aim 2). We also hypothesize
that the association between the environmental stressors with ADRD and vascular risk factors will vary among
race and ethnicity sub-groups, and that a large fraction of dementia cases in the US will be associated with
combined influence of modifiable environmental stressors, especially for Black and Latino individuals (Aim 3).
We will leverage massive exposure datasets, coupled with individual-level data and advanced statistical
methods, to overcome the limitations of prior studies and provide actionable evidence on ubiquitous modifiable
environmental stressors. We will identify combinations of modifiable environmental stressors that may reduce
racial and ethnic disparities in ADRD and vascular mechanisms of ADRD. Our findings will provide a
foundation to develop actionable items to prevent or mitigate ADRD inequities. The comprehensive multi-
dimensional spatial datasets and approaches developed in this project will be applicable to other
epidemiological studies that consider biological and behavioral pathways through which environmental stress
affects neurovascular health.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10977266
- **Project number:** 1R01NS139186-01
- **Recipient organization:** BOSTON UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CAMPUS
- **Principal Investigator:** Marcia Ixchel Pescador Jimenez
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $837,826
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2024-07-15 → 2029-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10977266

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10977266, Race/ethnicity and Environmental Stressors: POtential drivers of Dementia and stroke inequities RESPOnD (1R01NS139186-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-29 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10977266. Licensed CC0.

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