Lifecourse health, cerebral pathology and ethnic disparities in dementia

AG052132

In 2012 President Obama signed the National Alzheimer’s Plan Act with a primary objective to decrease racial disparities of dementia. While it is known that certain ethnoracial groups such as Blacks have higher rates of dementia, reasons for these disparities are unknown. We propose an unprecedented lifecourse study of ethnic disparities in late life cognitive outcomes using a large multi-ethnic sample with over 5 decades of prospectively collected life history and health data. Our overall objectives are to delineate why there are racial/ethnic disparities in dementia and how risk and protective factors and brain mechanisms differ across ethnoracial groups.