Public Health.

Background: Stress has emerged as a risk factor in the development and progression of Alzheimer's Disease (AD). However, there is limited research on the impact cumulative individual and familial stress has on AD. This study aims to investigate the relationship between stress and AD within a global cohort of underrepresented populations including Black Americans (BAs), Hispanic/Latinos (H/Ls), and Africans (As).

Public Health.

Background: Black/African Americans (B/AAs) remain underrepresented in Alzheimer's disease (AD) research and clinical trials. As a part of understanding genetics and genomics of AD, four U.S sites are recruiting 4,000 African Americans over age 60 for research participation.

Biomarkers.

Background: While Alzheimer disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia, it has long been recognized that cardiovascular and cerebrovascular health plays a major role in cognitive function. As such, the development of accessible biomarkers to assess vascular cognitive impairment and dementia (VCID) is a key step towards identifying effective prevention and treatment strategies. While a set of blood-based VCID biomarkers has been under investigation, there is a critical paucity of data from genetically admixed individuals.

Developing Topics.

Background: Despite evidence that Alzheimer's disease (AD) is highly heritable, there remains substantial "missing" heritability, likely due in part to the effect of rare variants and to the past reliance on case-control analysis. Here, we leverage powerful endophenotypes of AD (cognitive performance across multiple cognitive domains) in a rare variant analysis to identify novel genetic drivers of cognition in aging and disease.

Method: We leveraged 8 cohorts of cognitive aging with whole genome sequencing data from the AD Sequencing Project to conduct rare variant analyses of multiple domains of cognition (N = 9,317; mean age = 73; 56% female; 52% cognitively unimpaired).

Dementia Care Research and Psychosocial Factors.

Background: Black Americans (BAs), Hispanics/Latinos (H/Ls), and Africans (As) face a disproportionate burden of aging and Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias (AD/ADRD), coupled with underrepresentation in research. Further, researchers also report a lack of compliance on sensitive social determinants of health data for AD/ADRD research. For instance, the PRAPARE tool reports a low completion rate in community and clinical settings.