The Community Outreach, Diversity and Inclusion (CODI) Core will coordinate with the other Cores to foster research on Alzheimer?s disease and related disorders (ADRD) and ensure the proper representation of Black/African American (B/AA) participants. In the heart of the Deep South, Alabama residents have experienced a history of unique social and economic inequalities and high rates of co-occurring medical conditions. These factors may contribute to the elevated incidence of dementia in this region. Major goals of the CODI Core are to increase ADRD awareness, properly inform potential participants of the procedures and tests necessary to effectively conduct ADRD research, and enhance the ADRD research infrastructure in the Deep South. Our community partnership approach will be guided by our established relationships with the Deep South RCMAR, professional women?s and men?s service organizations including Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority and Nasiha Roho Adinasi fraternity, and area aging and dementia agencies. We will use multiple modalities to extend our reach throughout the Deep South including a needs assessment in the area surrounding our new second site at UAB Medical West Hospital in Bessemer, AL (predominately B/AA), training a cohort of Community Health Alzheimer?s Advisors (CHAAs), and focus groups to get residents views on ADRD-related research. We will oversample B/AA residents for participation in ADRC activities and research by utilizing i2b2 informatics to identify patients utilizing services offered by the UAB Health System (UABHS) and continuing our fruitful collaboration with the national Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS) study. Birmingham area REGARDS participants will be given the opportunity enroll in the ADRC. This collaboration may serve as a model for expanding to other geographic regions with ADRCs and large concentrations of participants in existing population-based research. We propose to rigorously evaluate and publish the results of our outreach, engagement, recruitment, and retention methods, and we will collate and disseminate best practices to ADRCs and other ADRD networks.
