A ground-breaking long-term study of Alzheimer’s disease in African Americans being conducted by Rutgers University-Newark will double in size thanks to a new five-year $7.4 million grant from the National Institute on Aging, part of the federal National Institutes of Health. This study, unique in the nation and known as “Pathways to Healthy Aging in African Americans,” examines the interaction between genetics, environment, and lifestyle in the development of Alzheimer’s Disease among African Americans. Since 2016, it has followed the health of more than 500 Newark-area residents ages 60 and older who were cognitively healthy when they joined the study.
“We are very excited that seven years after we began this program, it has grown in the number of older African-American participants, community partners, and collaborators from around the world, so that we have now become a major center for the study of aging and Alzheimer’s disease in African Americans,” said Mark Gluck, a Rutgers-Newark professor of Neuroscience, who heads the Aging & Brain Health Alliance, which has been conducting the ongoing study. To read the full story.