NEJM: Minorities and Alzheimer’s

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For those non-trad students who are URM and hope to serve minorities, you might find the following article of interest just published in the New Journal of Medicine. It summarizes the progress made to date on Alzheimer’s, and provided some eye opening data on how minorities have been excluded.


Progress with Treatments for Alzheimer’s Disease​

In addition, there is a risk that health care disparities would worsen with the implementation of these treatments. Black and Hispanic or Latino people are disproportionately affected by Alzheimer’s disease,9 yet they are less likely to receive timely diagnosis and treatment than people of other racial or ethnic backgrounds.10 The underrepresentation of minorities in Alzheimer’s disease research also raises serious concerns. For example, Black patients with Alzheimer’s disease may have lower tau levels than non-Hispanic White patients,11 which poses a risk of false negative diagnosis and underestimated staging for Alzheimer’s disease among Black patients. The safety and efficacy of new treatments in minority populations is impossible to know, given how few have participated in clinical trials; only approximately 3% of participants in this trial were Black and 1% Asian.