Photo Credit: Mohammed Haneefa Nizamudeen
The following is a summary of “Associations of Everyday and Lifetime Experiences of Discrimination With Willingness to Undergo Alzheimer Disease Predictive Testing,” published in the January 2024 issue of Neurology by Hill-Jarrett et al.
Researchers conducted a retrospective study to explore how everyday and historical discrimination influence interest in Alzheimer disease (AD) predictive testing, aiming to promote equitable access as this technology emerges.
They conducted the Health and Retirement Study waves (2010 and 2012), randomly selecting respondents to answer questions about their interest in free testing for predicting AD development. The exposures included everyday discrimination (6 items) and lifetime discrimination (7 items), converted into binary variables. Logistic regression models, controlling for deciles of propensity scores for each discrimination measure, predicted interest in AD testing. Odds ratios were later re-expressed as risk differences (RDs).
The results showed 1,499 respondents, with a mean age of 67 (SD = 10.2) years. Of these, 57.4% were women, 65.7% were White, and 80% expressed interest in AD predictive testing. Approximately 54.7% of participants encountered everyday discrimination in at least one domain, while 24.1% experienced significant lifetime discrimination in at least one domain. Individuals interested in predictive testing were younger (66 vs. 70 years) and more likely to be Black (20% vs. 15%) or Latinx (14% vs. 8%) compared to those uninterested in testing. The probability of desiring an AD test was not linked to discrimination for Black (RD everyday discrimination = −0.026; 95% CI [−0.081 to 0.029]; RD lifetime discrimination = −0.012; 95% CI [−0.085 to 0.063]) or Latinx (RD everyday discrimination = −0.023, 95% CI [−0.082 to 0.039]; RD lifetime discrimination = −0.011; 95% CI [−0.087 to 0.064]) participants.
They concluded that despite discrimination, Black and Latinx folks showed interest in AD testing, offering a path to boost their inclusion in research.