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Testing an Alzheimer’s Disease Educational Approach in Two African American Neighborhoods in Florida

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Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

African Americans experience a significantly greater burden of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) compared to non-Hispanic White Americans. Raising awareness and increasing knowledge of AD within African American communities is an important step towards addressing these disparities. The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of two approaches to sharing AD knowledge with community residents. Using a quasi-experimental design, African American participants were recruited through community partners and local resources in two comparable neighborhoods in Duval County, Florida, which formed the intervention and the comparison groups for this study. The identical 40-min educational lecture was provided to both groups. In the intervention community, the lecture was followed by focus group sessions modeled after the Dementia Friendly America toolkit. In the comparison community, the lecture was followed by a social event where participants could interact informally with the speaker and dementia outreach staff. A brief quantitative survey assessing AD knowledge was administered to participants in both groups before the education session, immediately after the lecture, and 2 months later. Results indicate that both groups improved their knowledge scores at immediate post-test. Scores for both groups declined at 2-month follow-up, but the comparison group’s scores declined more precipitously than the intervention group’s scores (p = 0.0.21). These results suggest that conducting focus groups and interviews following a lecture on AD may help better retain AD knowledge over time.

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Data Availability

The survey data used in this study is available upon request.

Code Availability

Not applicable.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to sincerely thank all study participants for engaging in this research project as well as community partners who provided space for project activities.

Funding

Funding for this project was received from the Florida Department of Health Ed and Ethel Moore Alzheimer’s Disease Research Program (FL 8AZ08) and the Mayo Clinic Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (P30 AG62677). This research was also made possible by the Mayo Clinic Center for Clinical and Translational Science (CCaTS) through a grant from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH UL1 TR002377).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, Mayo Clinic, 4500 San Pablo Rd S, Jacksonville, FL, 32224, USA

    Caroline D. Bergeron, Maisha T. Robinson, Floyd B. Willis, Monica L. Albertie, Jolita D. Wainwright, Michelle R. Fudge, Francine C. Parfitt, Julia E. Crook, Colleen T. Ball & John A. Lucas

Authors
  1. Caroline D. Bergeron
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  2. Maisha T. Robinson
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  3. Floyd B. Willis
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  4. Monica L. Albertie
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  5. Jolita D. Wainwright
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  6. Michelle R. Fudge
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  7. Francine C. Parfitt
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  8. Julia E. Crook
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  9. Colleen T. Ball
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  10. John A. Lucas
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Contributions

J.A.L. designed and directed the study. All authors except for J.E.C. and C.T.B. were involved in planning the study, developing the survey, and collecting the data. J.E.C. and C.T.B. performed the data analysis. C.D.B. and J.A.L. wrote the manuscript. All authors reviewed, commented, and agreed with the final version of the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to John A. Lucas.

Ethics declarations

Ethics Approval

This study was approved by the [blinded for peer review]’s institutional review board (Ethics #18–002736).

Consent to Participate

This study was deemed minimal risk and required only verbal assent from all study participants prior to data collection. All participants agreed to participate in this study.

Consent for Publication

All participants provided consent for the research team to disseminate the results of this study through scientific publications and conference presentations.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare no competing interests.

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Bergeron, C.D., Robinson, M.T., Willis, F.B. et al. Testing an Alzheimer’s Disease Educational Approach in Two African American Neighborhoods in Florida. J. Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities 9, 2283–2290 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40615-021-01165-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40615-021-01165-7

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