Research investigating new medications and diagnostics for Alzheimer's disease (AD) is critical and will require large numbers of patients and normal control individuals. This """"""""therapeutic imperative"""""""" is the theme of the Alzheimer Disease Research Center (ADRC) at UCLA. Recruitment of participants, retention of subjects for the duration of research projects, and the assurance of research populations that are representative of the larger disease population are the objectives of the Recruitment and Education Core (REC) at the UCLA ADRC. The REC has been infused with substantial resources to make accomplishment of these objectives realistic. The REC will engage in a wide number of unique and innovative recruitment, retention, community outreach, and educational strategies. The REC sponsors a variety of educational conferences, many of which are done in partnership with community organizations such as the Alzheimer's Association. A clear need in AD research is to increase representation of minorities. In the last grant cycle, REC reached 20,000 educational event attendees, including 1000 clinicians and over 900 minority community members. REC has a robust array of minority-oriented activities for the new grant cycle. New to this proposal, the REC will develop of African American and Hispanic Community Advisory Boards to guide minority recruitment efforts. The REC will also partner with Healthcare Communications Group to increase public awareness of AD research, and with the PriMed Institute to educate primary care physicians on AD management guidelines and the need for increased referrals to research. The REC will continue to work closely with the other Cores of the ADRC. This includes collaborations with the Data Management and Statistics Core to better estimate the number of needed research subjects;with the Clinical Core to ensure the proper collection of data for the Uniform Data Set (UDS);with the Neuropathology Core to conduct the successful ClinicoPathologic Conference (CPC);and with Administrative Core to ensure the maximal functionality of the Center website and other tools to keep subjects, donors, and the general community aware of the Center's activities. All REC activities will be continually evaluated for success. This includes a constant monitoring of the sources of enrolled research subjects. Evaluations will dictate future programs and resource use.
The recruitment and retention of patients to participate in AD research is critical to the success of the therapeutic imperative. Subject enrollment must be representative of the larger AD population. Many barriers exist to the enrollment of a representative research population and the activities of the REC are aimed at overcoming these barriers and supporting the other Cores in the UCLA ADRC.
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