Expanding the scope of health disparities research in Alzheimer's disease and related dementias

Abstract

Topics discussed at the "Leveraging Existing Data and Analytic Methods for Health Disparities Research Related to Aging and Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias" workshop, held by Duke University and the Alzheimer's Association with support from the National Institute on Aging, are summarized. Ways in which existing data resources paired with innovative applications of both novel and well-known methodologies can be used to identify the effects of multi-level societal, community, and individual determinants of race/ethnicity, sex, and geography-related health disparities in Alzheimer's disease and related dementia are proposed. Current literature on the population analyses of these health disparities is summarized with a focus on identifying existing gaps in knowledge, and ways to mitigate these gaps using data/method combinations are discussed at the workshop. Substantive and methodological directions of future research capable of advancing health disparities research related to aging are formulated. K E Y W O R D Shealth disparities, gaps in knowledge, methods for disparity measurements and explanations

Precognition of mental health and neurogenerative disorders using AI-parsed text and sentiment analysis

“…This suggests considerable challenges in accurately detecting cases of Depression and Anxiety, as indicated by a high rate of false negatives and a significant number of false positives; (3) None (Healthy): the classifier demonstrates reasonable performance in identifying healthy individuals, with a precision of 0.65 and a higher recall of 0.85, yielding an f1-score of 0.74. This suggests a reliable identification of healthy cases, though there is scope for improvement in precision; (4) Psychosis: in the Psychosis category, the model achieves moderate precision (0.67) but a lower recall (0.35), resulting in an f1-score of 0.46. This points to a moderate level of accuracy in predicting Psychosis (fewer false positives), but with a notable number of missed true cases (higher false negatives); (5) Suicide and Depression: the classifier shows fairly good precision (0.74) but moderate recall (0.49), culminating in an f1-score of 0.59.…”

“…The approach relies on analyzing patterns in language that may be indicative of cognitive, psychological, or even some physical health conditions. Here's how it might work for various conditions, like: (1) Mental health disorders [28,29]: (a) changes in the frequency of communication, use of negative words, and shifts in the complexity of language may suggest depression or anxiety [7]; (b) the disorganized thought patterns that emerge in how a person composes messages could be a warning sign of psychotic disorders [30]; or (c) the repeated questions, simpler sentence structures, or a notable decline in the complexity of language could indicate cognitive decline, like Alzheimer's disease and dementia [4];…”

Identification and Correlation of Novel Genes Associated with Progression of Alzheimer’s Disease

“…Correlating to this data, the health-related burden of AD and related dementia will continue to increase, thus affecting the global economy. 6 Since AD remains incurable, the World Health Organization has labeled it a "global public health priority". 7 According to anatomic pathology, AD can be recognized by two prototypical lesions: (1) Senile plaques, which are extracellular lesions of β-amyloid protein (Aβ-42), and (2) Neurofibrillary tangles that comprise phosphorylated Tau protein in neuronal cytoplasm.…”

A fresh look at the multi‐level social determinants of disparities in Alzheimer's disease and related dementias

“…In true reflection of the deeply multifaceted nature of this line of inquiry, the topics covered in this special issue span a diverse array of content areas such as SDoH-linked cognitive decline across racial groups, the lack of representativeness in ADRD research, the effects of early life experiences on late-life cognition, the impact of COVID-19 on cognitive impairment in older adults, the economic burden associated with mild cognitive impairment and mild dementia, proposals emanating from workshops and perspectives on improving access to timely diagnosis, differences in performance across racial groups on commonly used instruments for tracking cognitive change, and novel methodologies that can be used to better understand how the environment affects brain health. [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24] Taken together, the studies in this special issue bring us closer to identifying key constructs related to economic stability, social and community context, access to and quality of health care, and other things that are linked to cognitive outcomes and the progression to ADRD in minoritized older adults. Email: ozioma@medicine.wisc.edu…”