Alzheimer's Disease (AD) represents a significant public health problem among the elderly with prevalence estimates ranging from 2 to 4 million in the United States and the prevalence of AD among minorities is at least as high as among the predominant Caucasian cultural groups. Yet minority groups who often have greater medical needs are under- represented in clinical studies. The goal of this core is to improve minority participation in clinical trials and thus insure that safety and efficacy of potential treatments is adequately evaluated for these groups.
Our specific aims are as follows. (1) Assist ADCS investigators in developing protocols which permit maximum participation by minority subjects. This work includes identifying and eliminating culturally biased inclusion and exclusion criteria, providing translations of study instruments, and developing strategies for recruiting from minority populations. (2) Support enrollment efforts by providing staff training, and by developing informational materials for community based minority health professionals and lay people. (3) Use data across all trials to maximize our understanding of the safety and efficacy profile of potential treatments for AD in minority populations. The availability of individual subject data and the commonality of data collection tools and staffing across all ADCS trials will maximize the validity of meta- analyses that can be conducted to address questions about therapeutic profiles in minority groups. Further, the combination of subjects in placebo arms of all trials will provide a mechanism to examine ethnically based differences in rates of progression.
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