Thursday, May 2, 2024
5/2/2024
Black Americans are twice as likely as White Americans to have Alzheimer’s disease (AD), independent of genetic risk. Despite this knowledge, little is known about whether and how chronic experiences of racism contribute to medial temporal hippocampal (MTH) and prefrontal-executive system integrity, systems that exhibit profound neurodegeneration in AD and vulnerability to chronic stress. Although comorbid illnesses and socioeconomic status contribute to the AD health disparity, disparities remain. This highlights a critical unmet need for understanding social and societal stressors to disparities in brain health. A major contributor to health inequities in the U.S. is chronic stress due to the cumulative effects of racism over the lifetime. The impact of chronic interpersonal and institutional/structural racism, unique and salient forms of chronic stress in Black Americans, on the neurocognitive integrity of these brain systems is not well understood. Since perceived racism contributes to health disparities in cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors, which are also risk factors for AD, perceived racism should have a significant impact also on the AD health disparity. The objective of the parent R01 grant is to investigate the impact of racism on 1) CVD risk and 2) neurocognitive MTH-memory and prefrontal-executive system integrity in Black seniors and to examine potentially underlying biological mechanisms. The research objective of this diversity supplement is to examine the impact of consequences of structural racism on neurocognitive integrity, namely 1) acculturation, a social compensatory mechanism defined as the incorporation of the cultural norms of the social majority within a society, and 2) lower education quality, leading to poorer dementia-related health literacy and greater public stigma associated with AD. The central hypothesis of the parent R01 grant is that cognitively healthy Black seniors who have experienced higher levels of chronic racism will show greater CVD risk and poorer MTH and prefrontal integrity than those who have experienced fewer instances of racism over their lifetime. CVD risk and mental health may mediate (i.e., explain) the relationship between racism burden and neurocognitive integrity. This diversity supplement extends the parent grant by examining the relationships between AD-related health literacy, and public stigma associated with AD with cognitive and neuroimaging outcomes (Aim 1) and acculturation (Aim 2) with cognitive and neuroimaging outcomes. Aim 3 is exploratory and will examine racism burden and public stigma as moderators of the relationship between acculturation and neurocognitive outcomes. The proposed diversity supplement is for the candidate to gain expertise in how proxies of anti-Black structural racism affect brain health in older Black self-identifying adults. To achieve these goals, in addition to the research aims outlined above, the candidate is proposing training in multimodal neuroimaging (i.e., structural and fMRI) and statistical modeling, and advancing mastery of MTH- and prefrontal-dependent functions related to anti-Black racism. This supplement will set up the candidate for success in independent neurocognitive aging research.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).
