RCASIA

The NYC/NJ-based Rutgers-NYU Resource Center on Alzheimer’s and Dementia Research in Asian & Pacific Americans (RCASIA) has the mission of advancing APA AD/ADRD-related brain health through developing the next generation of Scientists through innovative models of mentoring Pods and data sharing across micro-cohorts. RCASIA is the traditional Asian Resource Center for Minority Aging Research (RCMAR) but focuses on AD/ADRD-related behavioral, social, and economic research in older APAs.  

RCASIA Aims: 

Aim 1: Establish a hub for AD/ADRD research in disaggregated APA subgroups by proactively engaging mentors, methodological experts, underrepresented ESIs, Alzheimer’s Disease Research Centers, community advisors, lived advisors, and policymakers.  

Aim 2. Leverage prospectively recruiting studies focused on APA brain health to recruit, mentor, and elevate ESIs underrepresented in Behavioral, Social, and Economic Research related to AD/ADRD through yearly pilot awards and discipline-specific mentoring Pods.  

Aim 3. Assemble APA subgroup-specific Teams to enhance the collaborative development of linguistically and socio-culturally appropriate AD/ADRD research tools, common data elements, and data-sharing practices.  

Aim 4. Curate, analyze, and share common data elements from RCASIA- and externally-funded pilot projects on AD/ADRD-related Behavioral, Social, and Economic Research to inform APA brain health practices and policies. 

AD/ADRD research on older APAs thus must account for historical exposures in their countries of origin as well as contemporary US-based factors according to:  

1. People: macropolitical events dictate who get to immigrate to the area and for what reason  
2. Culture: diet, perception of dementia, trust in US healthcare, parallel healthcare in country-of-origin  
3. Time: historical health- and immigration-related events in country-of-origin as well as US 
4. Place: adaptive and maladaptive behaviors specific to US regions (eg, ethnic enclaves, majority-minority areas, region-specific structural racism and contemporary race relations)  

Recognizing these influences in a life-course model of cognitive decline – age-related as well as neurodegenerative – does not necessarily require scientists of Asian ancestry, but does benefit from a critical mass of scientists skilled in AD/ADRD research, familiar with sociocultural construction of cognition in disaggregated APA subgroups, and experienced in gathering or interpreting data collected from older APAs.