RI Faith Leaders Help Recruit Diverse Alzheimer’s Research Participants
Did you know that compared to White Americans, older Black, Hispanic and other people of color are disproportionately affected by Alzheimer’s Disease? The numbers are grim: among Black Americans ages 70 and up, 21.3% are living with Alzheimer’s.
Despite the fact that Black Americans are twice as likely, and Hispanic Americans are one and a half times as likely, as White Americans to develop the disease, Alzheimer’s research has not traditionally reflected these demographics. In fact, African Americans represent only 5% of participants in clinical trials.
Now, Rhode Island organizations are taking a lead role in changing that lack of representation in research, with a collaborative project that sees faith leaders act as trusted community liaisons to recruit diverse participants to the landmark US POINTER Alzheimer’s clinical trial.
US POINTER aims to “evaluate whether lifestyle interventions that target multiple risk reduction strategies can protect memory and other thinking abilities in people who may be at increased risk of developing memory loss and dementia in the future.” The interventions that are being tested are non-invasive: changes to diet and level of physical activity.
The model being used to attract diverse participants from Rhode Island and southern New England to join the study is the Faith Engagement Outreach Model. It “seeks to expand participation, amplify advocacy, catalyze learning, develop trust and tolerance and facilitate engagement.”
Rev. Dr. Lamonte Williams, who created the Faith Engagement Outreach Model, remarked “If you want real change, you must start at the center of the community, and the center of the African American community has long been the African American church.”
“In the Black Christian community, news travels by word of mouth. Talking to people in a congregation is an opportunity to also reach their friends and family members who don’t go to church,” noted Dr. Katrina Byrd.
According to Rev. Williams, the project is having an exponential and positive effect in the general community, too, as enrolled participants share their new knowledge about Alzheimer’s prevention with their loved ones, who then make changes to their shopping and meal habits.
In 2021, the Alzheimer’s Association published a special report on Race, Ethnicity and Alzheimer’s in America. Its authors concluded that “Actions and solutions are needed to ensure that the already devastating burden of Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias on disproportionately affected racial and ethnic groups is not made worse by discrimination and health inequities in the current health care system.”
Kudos to the collaborating organizations for their work in this critical area of research: Brown University, Butler Hospital, Miriam Hospital, the Alzheimer’s Association Rhode Island Chapter and Massachusetts/New Hampshire Chapter.