scholarly journals Linking Sleep and Racial Health Disparities: Characterizing Sleep in the National Sleep Research Resource

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 629-630
Author(s):  
Alycia Sullivan Bisson ◽  
Susan Redline ◽  
Shaun Purcell
Keyword(s):  
Health Disparities ◽  
Racial Differences ◽  
Cognitive Aging ◽  
Linear Models ◽  
Spectral Power ◽  
Cardiometabolic Health ◽  
Racial Groups ◽  
Racial Health Disparities ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Interaction With Age

Abstract To address the problem of racial health disparities, prior work has studied differences in environmentally-influenced and modifiable health behaviors, like nutrition and physical activity. Mounting evidence suggests that sleep plays a key role in health, including cardiometabolic and neurodegenerative disease. Thus, studies have begun to characterize sleep differences across racial groups. We aimed to better quantify differences in objective sleep that may contribute to racial health disparities. In preliminary analyses, we examined whole-night polysomnography from 728 individuals between the ages of 7 and 86 (M: 41.39, SD: 19.39) in the diverse Cleveland Family Study (45% males, 57% African Americans; AAs). Linear models examined racial differences in a battery of sleep metrics and tested interactions with age. Microarchitecture metrics included NREM spindle and slow oscillations, important to cognitive-aging and cardiometabolic health. AAs spent relatively more time in lighter N2 (b= 0.295, p<.001) and less time in deeper N3 (b= -0.364, p<.001) sleep. AAs also had lower NREM spectral power across multiple frequency bands (p<.001), and reductions in spindle characteristics including amplitude (b = -0.537, p<.001) and density (b = -0.341, p<.001). Metrics showed qualitatively different patterns of interaction with age: e.g., racial differences in N3 duration increased with age, and differences in spindle amplitude decreased with age (interactions p<.001), despite marked age-related reductions across all individuals. This work may help to identify specific modifiable aspects of sleep as targets for ameliorating health disparities. Patterns of racial differences over the lifecourse may illuminate different mechanisms being active at different points in development.

scholarly journals Racial Health Disparities in Coronavirus Deaths

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel L. Howard
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
African American ◽  
Health Disparities ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Racial Disparities ◽  
Racial Differences ◽  
Causes Of Death ◽  
Current Trend ◽  
Racial Groups ◽  
Racial Health Disparities

Preliminary racial data on the coronavirus pandemic indicates that African Americans are much more likely to experience infections, hospitalizations, and death from the virus in comparison to other racial groups. While this appears to be an alarming health outcome regarding African Americans, it is, in fact, not surprising, nor even new information, considering the historical context of racial health disparities and the marginal health of African Americans in the United States. The leading causes of death for African Americans generally and historically reflects the leading causes of death for the entire United States population. More research, and obviously data, is needed to fully understand the factors that cause the overall racial health disparities, in general, and racial disparities in coronavirus cases and deaths, in particular. In the case of the coronavirus pandemic, the racial disparities in deaths reflect racial differences in the way that African Americans live, work, and exist as a result of their ‘second-class citizenship’ with respect to their lower socioeconomic status in comparison to other racial groups. From a health policy perspective, challenges exist to reversing the current trend in coronavirus deaths among African Americans due to a myriad of historic, consistent, and pervasive societally-induced deficits within African American life. The proposed chapter will rely on systematic review of the extant literature on racial health disparities to identify multiple factors that may affect African American deaths due to the current coronavirus pandemic. The chapter will also rely on this framework to inform evidence-based approaches to improve public health for African Americans.

Issues of Diversity in Cognitive Aging

2019 ◽  
pp. 851-864
Author(s):  
Lisa L. Barnes
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Impairment ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Racial Differences ◽  
Cognitive Aging ◽  
Public Health Problem ◽  
Major Public Health Problem ◽  
Racial Groups ◽  
Majority Population ◽  
Aging Studies ◽  
Rapid Pace

Cognitive impairment associated with aging and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is among the most common and debilitating conditions, and it poses a major public health problem. Projections indicate that the prevalence of cognitive impairment is expected to increase substantially in the next decade. This will be particularly true for minority populations, especially the older African American population, which is growing at an even more rapid pace than the older majority population. This chapter presents an overview of studies that have examined racial differences in cognitive aging. Studies have found consistent level differences in cognitive performance, with older African Americans tending to score lower on cognitive tests compared to similarly aged non-Hispanic Whites, even after adjusting for confounding factors such as education and socioeconomic status. Such findings have led to the proposal that African Americans are more likely to have cognitive impairment and are at greater risk of AD. The chapter presents critical challenges in comparing African Americans and Whites on cognitive function tests, and it discusses the utility of using longitudinal designs to compare the racial groups. It also discusses critical barriers to understanding of racial differences in the field and offers concrete actions that should be taken to move the field forward in this area.

scholarly journals LEVERAGING ANALYTIC METHODS TO EXPAND OPPORTUNITIES IN AGING-RELATED HEALTH DISPARITIES RESEARCH

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S426-S426
Author(s):  
Igor Akushevich ◽  
Carl V Hill ◽  
Heather E Whitson
Keyword(s):  
Health Disparities ◽  
Cognitive Aging ◽  
Small Population ◽  
The Body ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Analytic Methods ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Patterns Of Aging ◽  
The U.S

Abstract The objective of the Symposium is to improve the understanding of how existing analytic methods and data can be leveraged to make progress in understanding the causes and mechanisms of health-related disparities in Alzheimer’s disease, related dementias and other prominent age-related diseases. Topics will cover a range of academic and administrative topics including: i) advanced analytic methods and modeling of health disparities with application to racial and geographic disparities in AD/ADRD; ii) the role of repeated anesthetic and surgical exposure in generation of disparities in AD/ADRD risk; iii) the nature of health disparities in cognitive aging as parallel to or distinct from health disparities in patterns of aging in other systems in the body; iv) recent advances in machine learning applied to large claims databases involving medical disparities; and v) geographic-related disparities in life expectancy across the U.S. A focus will be made on demonstrating how studies using established administrative data resources such as Medicare claims databases combined with innovative analytic approaches such as partitioning analyses, time-series based methods of projection and forecasting, and stochastic process models can be used to uncover previously overlooked or understudied aspects in this area of research. Analyses of such increasingly available large health datasets provides an opportunity to obtain nationally representative multiethnic results based on individual-level measures that reflect the real care-related and epidemiological processes ongoing in the U.S. healthcare system and allows the targetting of relatively rare diseases in relatively small population subgroups.

scholarly journals SOCIOCULTURAL DETERMINANTS OF RACIAL HEALTH DISPARITIES ACROSS THE LIFECOURSE

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S590-S591
Author(s):  
Nancy Chiles Shaffer ◽  
Carl V Hill
Keyword(s):  
Health Disparities ◽  
Racial Differences ◽  
Social Determinants ◽  
Healthy Aging ◽  
Financial Burden ◽  
Large Body ◽  
Sociocultural Factors ◽  
Racial Health Disparities ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
And Gender

Abstract Racial health disparities have been observed across the lifecourse. While some studies have attributed these disparities to underlying biomedical differences, a large body of research supports a sociocultural etiology. In this symposium we will demonstrate that observed racial differences in health outcomes are associated with sociocultural factors, and demonstrate effective strategies for assessing race and racial differences in qualitative and quantitative analyses. We will share an overview of health disparities and aging, highlighting the National Institute on Aging’s Health Disparities Research Framework. After this introduction, four speakers will present scientific projects that exemplify the breadth and depth of research assessing health disparities and social determinants of health across the lifecourse. Dr. Brown will present qualitative work on how social determinants are positively addressed through exercise. Dr. Chiles Shaffer will present findings demonstrating the contribution of financial burden and lower education to racial differences in healthy aging. Dr. Noppert will present evidence highlighting the structural influences that underlie the association between education and metabolic health focusing on differences by race and gender. Dr. Thierry will present research on the association between neighborhood characteristics and telomere length with a focus on heterogeneity by race and urban/non-urban residence. Finally, Dr. Hill will provide an overview of the four presentations and facilitate questions and discussion.

scholarly journals Addressing Racial Health Disparities: Looking Back to Point the Way Forward

2018 ◽  
Vol 680 (1) ◽  
pp. 132-171 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rucker C. Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Health Disparities ◽  
Racial Disparities ◽  
Racial Differences ◽  
Early Life ◽  
Family Background ◽  
Panel Study ◽  
Adult Mortality ◽  
Health Condition ◽  
Racial Health Disparities ◽  
Neighborhood Conditions

This article investigates the influence of family background and neighborhood conditions during childhood on health later in life, with a focus on hypertension. To document the proportion of current adult racial health disparities rooted in early-life factors, I use nationally representative longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) spanning four decades. The results indicate that racial differences in early life neighborhood conditions and family background characteristics play a substantial role in explaining racial disparities in hypertension through at least age 50. Contemporaneous socioeconomic factors account for relatively little of the racial disparities in this health condition in adulthood. Second, I match the PSID data to county-level data on Medicaid expenditures during these cohorts’ childhoods, and provide new causal evidence on the long-run returns to childhood Medicaid spending: Medicaid-induced increases in access to public health insurance led to significant reductions in the likelihood of low birth weight, increased educational attainment and adult income, and reduced adult mortality and the annual incidence of health problems.

Activity Engagement in Cognitive Aging: A Review of the Evidence

2013 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yvonne Rogalski ◽  
Muriel Quintana
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Cognitive Decline ◽  
Cognitive Aging ◽  
Social Activity ◽  
Current Evidence ◽  
Omega 3 ◽  
Neuroprotective Effects ◽  
Activity Engagement ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Age Related Cognitive Decline

The population of older adults is rapidly increasing, as is the number and type of products and interventions proposed to prevent or reduce the risk of age-related cognitive decline. Advocacy and prevention are part of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association’s (ASHA’s) scope of practice documents, and speech-language pathologists must have basic awareness of the evidence contributing to healthy cognitive aging. In this article, we provide a brief overview outlining the evidence on activity engagement and its effects on cognition in older adults. We explore the current evidence around the activities of eating and drinking with a discussion on the potential benefits of omega-3 fatty acids, polyphenols, alcohol, and coffee. We investigate the evidence on the hypothesized neuroprotective effects of social activity, the evidence on computerized cognitive training, and the emerging behavioral and neuroimaging evidence on physical activity. We conclude that actively aging using a combination of several strategies may be our best line of defense against cognitive decline.

Cognitive Aging in a Precision Sport Context

1996 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 166-179 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bo Molander ◽  
Lars Bäckman
Keyword(s):  
Older Adult ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Cognitive Aging ◽  
Motor Performance ◽  
Intervention Programs ◽  
Laboratory Studies ◽  
High Arousal ◽  
Memory And Attention ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Principal Finding

Highly skilled miniature golf players were examined in a series of field and laboratory studies. The principal finding from these studies is that young and young adult players (range = 15-38 years) score equally well or better in competition than in training whereas older adult players (range = 46-73 years) perform worse in competitive events than under training conditions. It was also found that the impairment in motor performance on the part of the older players is associated with age-related deficits in basic cognitive abilities, such as memory and attention. These results support the hypothesis that older players may be able to compensate for age-related deficits under relaxed conditions, but not under conditions of high arousal. The possibility of improving the performance of the older players in stressful situations by means of various intervention programs is discussed.

scholarly journals EEG Measures of Value-Directed Strategic Processing in Older Adults With and Without Mild Cognitive Impairment

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 292-293
Author(s):  
Lydia Nguyen ◽  
Shraddha Shende ◽  
Daniel Llano ◽  
Raksha Mudar
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Cognitive Impairment ◽  
Mild Cognitive Impairment ◽  
Cognitive Aging ◽  
Spectral Power ◽  
Group Differences ◽  
Cognitive Resources ◽  
Alpha Power ◽  
Strategic Processing ◽  
Unique Word

Abstract Value-directed strategic processing is important for daily functioning. It allows selective processing of important information and inhibition of irrelevant information. This ability is relatively preserved in normal cognitive aging, but it is unclear if mild cognitive impairment (MCI) affects strategic processing and its underlying neurophysiological mechanisms. The current study examined behavioral and EEG spectral power differences between 16 cognitively normal older adults (CNOA; mean age: 74.5 ± 4.0 years) and 16 individuals with MCI (mean age: 77.1 ± 4.3 years) linked to a value-directed strategic processing task. The task used five unique word lists where words were assigned high- or low-value based on letter case and were presented sequentially while EEG was recorded. Participants were instructed to recall as many words as possible after each list to maximize their score. Results revealed no group differences in recall of low-value words, but individuals with MCI recalled significantly fewer high-value words and total number of words relative to CNOA. Group differences were observed in theta and alpha bands for low-value words, with greater synchronized theta power for CNOA than MCI and greater desynchronized alpha power for MCI than CNOA. Collectively, these findings demonstrate that more effortful neural processing of low-value words in the MCI group, relative to the CNOA group, allowed them to match their behavioral performance to the CNOA group. Individuals with MCI appear to utilize more cognitive resources to inhibit low-value information and might show memory-related benefits if taught strategies to focus on high-value information processing.

scholarly journals EEG Data Quality: Determinants and Impact in a Multicenter Study of Children, Adolescents, and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 214
Author(s):  
Anna Kaiser ◽  
Pascal-M. Aggensteiner ◽  
Martin Holtmann ◽  
Andreas Fallgatter ◽  
Marcel Romanos ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Data Quality ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Linear Models ◽  
Spectral Power ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Continuous Performance Task ◽  
Related Data ◽  
Eyes Closed ◽  
Eeg Data ◽  
Eyes Open

Electroencephalography (EEG) represents a widely established method for assessing altered and typically developing brain function. However, systematic studies on EEG data quality, its correlates, and consequences are scarce. To address this research gap, the current study focused on the percentage of artifact-free segments after standard EEG pre-processing as a data quality index. We analyzed participant-related and methodological influences, and validity by replicating landmark EEG effects. Further, effects of data quality on spectral power analyses beyond participant-related characteristics were explored. EEG data from a multicenter ADHD-cohort (age range 6 to 45 years), and a non-ADHD school-age control group were analyzed (ntotal = 305). Resting-state data during eyes open, and eyes closed conditions, and task-related data during a cued Continuous Performance Task (CPT) were collected. After pre-processing, general linear models, and stepwise regression models were fitted to the data. We found that EEG data quality was strongly related to demographic characteristics, but not to methodological factors. We were able to replicate maturational, task, and ADHD effects reported in the EEG literature, establishing a link with EEG-landmark effects. Furthermore, we showed that poor data quality significantly increases spectral power beyond effects of maturation and symptom severity. Taken together, the current results indicate that with a careful design and systematic quality control, informative large-scale multicenter trials characterizing neurophysiological mechanisms in neurodevelopmental disorders across the lifespan are feasible. Nevertheless, results are restricted to the limitations reported. Future work will clarify predictive value.

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