Social determinants of health (SDOH) have long-term, far-reaching, and not always obvious ramifications in people’s lives—including their risk for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD).
This is clear from a close look at the counties most impacted by Alzheimer’s among communities of color, as explored by UsAgainstAlzheimer’s 2020 report with the Urban Institute, Place & Brain Health Equity: Understanding the County-Level Impacts of Alzheimer’s.
Our analysis found that the counties with the highest prevalence of Alzheimer’s among Blacks and Latinos in the Medicare program were more likely to have worse SDOH outcomes than counties with the lowest prevalence of Alzheimer’s.
A new data brief builds on this report by identifying the congressional districts that overlap with the 25 counties with the highest prevalence of Alzheimer’s among Black and Latino Americans across the United States.
The brief outlines the impact of Alzheimer’s on these congressional districts and makes policy recommendations to better target research investment, improve access to healthcare, and promote public health interventions for under-resourced communities.
When this county-level data is combined with information on the locations of federally funded Alzheimer’s research sites, we find tremendous gaps in research infrastructure in communities hard hit by Alzheimer’s and related dementias.
