Saturday, June 28, 2025 6/28/2025

Resilience, cultural alignment, and social support in brain aging: the Strong Heart Study

Award Number: R01AG070822
ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL INSTITUTE ON AGING
OPDIV: NIH
AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY
AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: SCIENTIFIC/HEALTH RESEARCH (INCLUDES SURVEYS)
PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE START DATE: 09/30/2020
PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE END DATE: 05/31/2026

Group Awards By:

View Award Description

Resilience, cultural alignment, and social support in brain aging: the Strong Heart Study - ABSTRACT When life stresses are especially intense, chronic, or overwhelming, deleterious health effects can occur, including inflammation, cardiovascular disease, disability, depression, low quality of life, and dementia. In this context, resilience can be defined as the ability to maintain a healthy aging trajectory despite adverse conditions of stress. American Indians (AI) have a unique history and ongoing experience of trauma and disparities in environmental and socioeconomic conditions, which amplify daily stresses and contribute to health risks. Despite these adverse circumstances, remarkable resilience has been described in AI populations. Recent work by our group suggests that social support and alignment with Native culture correlate with lower levels of stress, negativity, anger, hostility, depression, mortality, and cardiovascular disease. However, our findings on cultural alignment are limited, and none has yet explored associations of resilience and social support. It remains an open question whether neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD) can result from chronic stress, or whether individual psychosocial characteristics such as resilience can mediate such risk. We propose to address these knowledge gaps by efficiently leveraging an existing effort funded by the NHLBI in the Strong Heart Study, a longitudinal cohort of AI adults from 13 tribal communities across the US. The existing contract covers recruitment, consenting, and basic clinical examination of 3,000 eligible participants in 2022-2024; we propose to augment the limited protocol by administering additional psychosocial and neuropsychological instruments on resilience, social support, cultural identity and alignment, and cognition. Our Specific Aims are to: describe associations of individual resilience among AI adults with identity and self-regard, social support, and cultural alignment, by age and sex; evaluate resilience, social support, and cultural features in relation to ADRD; and use machine learning to develop explanatory models of resilience and dementia. Our study has the potential to advance epidemiologic knowledge of modifiable psychosocial conditions in a vulnerable, underserved population, and consequently to offer a clearer picture of the relative contributions of psychosocial, behavioral, interpersonal, and socioeconomic factors related to ADRD.


Issue Date FY	Funding FY	Legal Entity Name	Legal Entity Address	Legal Entity City	Legal Entity State	Legal Entity Zip Code	Legal Entity COUNTY	Legal Entity COUNTRY	Assistance Listing	Award Code	Budget Year	Action Date	Action Type	Action Amount

Issue Date FY: 2025 ( Subtotal = $0 )
2025	2024	HUNTINGTON MEDICAL RESEARCH INSTITUTES	686 S FAIR OAKS AVE	PASADENA	CA	91105	LOS ANGELES	USA	Aging Research	003	5	10/9/2024	CHANGE OF GRANTEE / TRAINING INSTITUTION / AWARDING INSTITUTION	$1,517,150
2025	2023	WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY	240 FRENCH ADMINISTRATION BLDG	PULLMAN	WA	99164	WHITMAN	USA	Aging Research	002	4	10/9/2024	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	-$593,038
2025	2022	WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY	240 FRENCH ADMINISTRATION BLDG	PULLMAN	WA	99164	WHITMAN	USA	Aging Research	001	3	10/9/2024	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	-$590,213
2025	2021	WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY	240 FRENCH ADMINISTRATION BLDG	PULLMAN	WA	99164	WHITMAN	USA	Aging Research	000	2	10/9/2024	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	-$333,899
														Subtotal = $0

Issue Date FY: 2024 ( Subtotal = $629,112 )
2024	2024	HUNTINGTON MEDICAL RESEARCH INSTITUTES	686 S FAIR OAKS AVE	PASADENA	CA	91105	LOS ANGELES	USA	Aging Research	001	5	5/1/2024	CHANGE OF GRANTEE / TRAINING INSTITUTION / AWARDING INSTITUTION	$629,112
2024	2023	WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY	240 FRENCH ADMINISTRATION BLDG	PULLMAN	WA	99164	WHITMAN	USA	Aging Research	000	4	4/30/2024	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$0
														Subtotal = $629,112

Issue Date FY: 2023 ( Subtotal = $593,038 )
2023	2023	WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY	240 FRENCH ADMINISTRATION BLDG	PULLMAN	WA	99164	WHITMAN	USA	Aging Research	000	4	7/12/2023	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$593,038
														Subtotal = $593,038

Issue Date FY: 2022 ( Subtotal = $590,213 )
2022	2022	WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY	240 FRENCH ADMINISTRATION BLDG	PULLMAN	WA	99164	WHITMAN	USA	Aging Research	000	3	8/17/2022	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$590,213
														Subtotal = $590,213

Issue Date FY: 2021 ( Subtotal = $590,213 )
2021	2021	WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY	240 FRENCH ADMINISTRATION BLDG	PULLMAN	WA	99164	WHITMAN	USA	Aging Research	000	2	5/21/2021	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$590,213
														Subtotal = $590,213

Issue Date FY: 2020 ( Subtotal = $521,320 )
2020	2020	WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY	240 FRENCH ADMINISTRATION BLDG	PULLMAN	WA	99164	WHITMAN	USA	Aging Research	000	1	9/15/2020	NEW	$521,320
														Subtotal = $521,320

Grand Total All Awards = $2,923,896

Top

All Categories

About

Search

Reports

Data Submission

Award Information

Resilience, cultural alignment, and social support in brain aging: the Strong Heart Study

Award Number: R01AG070822

ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL INSTITUTE ON AGING

OPDIV: NIH

AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY

AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: SCIENTIFIC/HEALTH RESEARCH (INCLUDES SURVEYS)

PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE START DATE: 09/30/2020

PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE END DATE: 05/31/2026

Federal Websites

Department of Health & Human Services

HHS Operating Divisions

HHS Staff Divisions

Download A Document Viewer