Geriatrics research team receives grant from Alzheimer’s Association for project on dementia-friendly communities

The Department of Medicine is pleased to share that a geriatrics research team was recently awarded a grant from the Alzheimer’s Association’s Advancing Research on Care and Outcome Measurements (ARCOM) Program for their project on dementia-friendly communities. The team was awarded $249,998.00 for the performance period of October 1, 2021 to September 30, 2023.

The research team is led by Alexis Bender, MD, assistant professor in the Division of Geriatrics and Gerontology, and Miranda Moore, MD, assistant professor in the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine.

Please join us in congratulating the team on this exciting endeavor!

Project Summary
As the United States population ages, experts estimate the prevalence of Alzheimer’s and related dementias will increase dramatically. Organizations and researchers have deemed building dementia-friendly communities a priority for everyone, and innovative programs are being developed to meet the educational and infrastructural needs of individuals living with dementia and their caregivers. However, there are currently no available tools to assess how dementia-friendly a community is or the effectiveness of these interventions to increase dementia-friendliness. Through a partnership with the Alter program, which aims to improve the physical and mental health outcomes of African American church community members using educational and infrastructural interventions, we propose to use survey methodology and factor analysis to create and validate a measure to assess the level of dementia friendliness of these faith communities.