RAATE COVID Supplement

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Project summary The Reducing African Americans' Alzheimer's Disease Risk Through Exercise (RAATE) study is funded to determine the effects of physical activity on risk factors for Alzheimer's Disease in older African American adults. The study will recruit 200 older African American adults. The study is important because African American adults are broadly underrepresented in Alzheimer's Disease and Related Disorders (ADRD) research, leading to limited knowledge of disparities in ADRD causes, preventive strategies, and clinical course of ADRD. One specific area of ADRD research with especially critical under-representation is lifestyle modification as a preventive strategy. The COVID-19 pandemic has the potential to significantly hamper efforts to recruit African American into clinical trials, such as the RAATE study. African Americans are at increased risk of infection, hospitalization, and death from COVID compared to members of other ethnic groups, and this may reduce willingness to participate in clinical trials given the need for in-person assessments and intervention sessions. Our study, Reducing African Americans' Alzheimer's Disease Risk Through Exercise (RAATE) COVID 19 administrative supplement is designed to determine the impact of COVID-19 on older African Americans' willingness to participate in research. We will form an integrated multidisciplinary team of scientists in aging research, health disparities, and epidemiology to address this issue in an area representative of the Deep South, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. This region of the country has been particularly impacted by COVID-19. In collaboration with investigators from University of North Carolina and using the Health Belief Model as a theoretical framework, we will develop a questionnaire to assess the impact of COVID-19 on participant's lifestyle, perceived susceptibility and severity to COVID, benefits and barriers to research participation, access to healthcare, and trust in information sources. Aim 1 will assess Covid-19- related changes to the health and well-being of older African Americans. Aim 2 will assess Covid-19-related knowledge and willingness to participate in research among older African Americans. The final output of the RAATE-COVID supplement study will be to enhance enrollment in the RAATE study and to develop a set of generalizable strategies for recruiting sedentary older African Americans into clinical studies of lifestyle factors in aging.