For years, we’ve known that Latinos are at a higher risk for dementia, but now there’s more evidence of this. The Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of Alzheimer’s Association recently published on the largest and longest studies of ethnic disparities in dementia risk. They compared 6 ethnic and racial groups over the span of 14 years within the same geographic population, including Latinos.
The study included over 274,000 northern California members of Kaiser Permanente, one of the nation’s largest private integrated healthcare system, which includes over 10 million members. Researchers used electronic health records covering patient visits over 14 years in order to identify patients with dementia, taking into account their race and ethnicity.
“Most research on inequalities in dementia includes only one to two racial and ethnic groups, primarily whites and blacks,” said lead author Elizabeth Rose Mayeda, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, San Francisco in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics. “This is the only research that directly compares dementia for these six racial and ethnic groups, representing the true aging demographic of the United States in a single study population.”
“Even in the lowest risk groups in the study, the lifetime risk of developing dementia is high — in every racial and ethnic group, over one in four people who survive to age 65 can expect to be diagnosed with dementia in their lifetime,” said Rachel Whitmer, PhD, the principal investigator of the study and a research scientist at the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research.
According to the Alzheimer’s Association, age and genetics are some of the biggest risk factors for dementia. Yet, having heart-healthy habits, such as eating healthy, not smoking, maintaining good blood sugar, cholesterol and blood pressure and exercising can help protect people from dementia.
“Another thing that seems to be linked to dementia risk in addition to the heart-healthy factors is education. Access to education is something that has been shown to have a really profound effect on dementia risk, and not just how many years of schooling did you have, but did you have access to high-quality schooling?”
“So thinking on a population level, making sure that everyone has equal access to high-quality education is one potential target for helping to reduce inequalities in dementia,” she says.
SAMHSA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration) has several programs and initiatives surrounding mental health. They have Community Conversations About Mental Health that provide information in English and Spanish and they have the tools you need to have an open dialogue that breaks down misconceptions and builds awareness and support around mental health issues.