We wish to wholeheartedly thank the community participants in Chicago without whose participation this research will not be possible. We also wish to thank community leaders, neuroimaging facilities, and study staff and personnel who have tirelessly worked on this research project.
The Parent Offspring Resilience and Cognitive Health (PORCH) study and its data collection activities are funded by a grant from the National Institute on Aging (R01AG058679) and research activities are funded by grants from the National Institute on Aging (RF1AG057532 and R01AG051635). The parent study was funded by several grants from the National Institute on Aging (R01-AG11101 and R01AG031542). A more detailed description of these sources is below.
The National Institutes on Aging funded R01AG058679 (2019-2023), a second generation study proposed intergenerational study to examine the relation of midlife biomarkers of brain and cardiovascular health in offspring with risk of Alzheimer’s dementia and cognitive resilience in parents. Preserving cognitive resilience through early, mid, and late life biomarkers is a topic of high public health significance, since designing of preventive strategies through life course can offer stronger potential for slowing or reducing the risk of developing cognitive loss in late-life.
The National Institutes of Health funded grant R01AG051635 (2016-2021) was given to study the differences in preclinical changes and risk factors associated with preclinical and prodromal changes in cognitive function prior to the development of Alzheimer’s dementia between African Americans and non-Hispanic whites. Several significant scientific contributions to differences in cognitive changes during preclinical and prodromal phases of the disease including risk factor associations has been published through this grant.
The National Institute on Aging funded grant RF1AG057532 (2017-2021) is to examine demographic trends using a biracial population sample evaluated between 1993 and 2012. Using this grant, the prevalence and incidence of Alzheimer’s dementia in a population-based sample was evaluated. In addition, an Alzheimer’s dementia likelihood score based on a brief battery of cognitive tests were developed and published. Potential changes in chronic health conditions, such as, hypertension, diabetes, and statin medication were also examined as reasons for change in dementia trends.
The National Institutes of Health funded grant R01AG011101 was the original parent grant (1993-2012) to study the epidemiologic risk factors associated with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias in the parent cohort. The unique features of this study include a population-based in-home data collection and a large number of African Americans (60%) living in urban Chicago communities. The study consists of rich epidemiologic data and has published over 500 research papers in peer-reviewed journals and made several significant scientific contributions to Alzheimer’s disease research on risk factors.
The National Institutes of Health funded grant R01AG030146 (2007-2019) was given to study the genetic architecture of important and common phenotypes through an integrated consideration of both epigenomic variation and genomic variation. An integrated approach to genomic and epigenomic variation may be especially relevant in a study comparing results among AAs and European Americans (EAs) because of the different average exposures to life experiences and environments of these two racial/ethnic groups.