Cook Center Research Affiliates Eric Griffith, Paul Robbins, and Keisha Bentley-Edwards recently published a paper in the Aging & Mental Health journal investigating relationship between quality of life (QoL), Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD) with religion/spirituality (R/S) participation. Black people in the United States (US) experience an increased risk of being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD). Their analysis clarifies previous findings by examining how QoL factors and a unique sociocultural experience (i.e. R/S among Black people in the US) affect ADRD risk.
These findings demonstrate the importance of involving those experiencing negative effects in R/S for reducing the ADRD burden for Black people in the US, but more research is needed on psychosocial factors that may contribute to racial disparities in rates of ADRD.
Dr. Griffith is currently a Postdoctoral Associate within the Duke Center for the Study of Aging Postdoctoral Research Training Program and previously as a postdoctoral fellow with the Cook Center worked on the NIH-funded project “The influence of religion/spirituality on Alzheimer’s Disease and its related dementias (ADRD) for African Americans.
Dr. Robbins is currently an Assistant Professor of Human Development and Family Science at Purdue University and is a member of the Cook Center Health Equity working group.
Dr. Bentley-Edwards is the Associate Director of Research and Director of the Health Equity Working Group for the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity and an Associate Professor of Medicine, Division of General Internal Medicine, at Duke University.
Access the paper here.
