African Americans more likely to develop Alzheimer's disease
Kyle Steenland, professor of environmental health and epidemiology at Rollins School of Public Health Photo by Bryan Meltz
Emory researchers have conducted the only known meta-analysis of Alzheimer’s disease incidence by race and found that African Americans are 64 percent more likely to develop Alzheimer’s than Caucasians, after adjusting for age, gender, and education.
The estimate for prevalence of Alzheimer’s was 5.5 percent for Caucasians and 8.6 percent for African Americans. The article ran in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease in January.
Lead author Kyle Steenland, professor of environmental health and epidemiology at Rollins School of Public Health, worked with researchers from the Emory Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center to analyze data from six U.S. population-based studies to determine incidence and prevalence by race, with a combined 370 African-American and 640 Caucasian incident cases.
"A 64 percent higher incidence among African Americans is quite a large difference, in our view," says Steenland. "We wanted to come up with an overall estimate of racial differences to help motivate further exploration of possible causes, such as biological, psychological, and socioeconomic factors."
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