Abstract
Research suggests a disparity in the prevalence of dementia, with Black older adults having double the risk compared to their White counterparts. African immigrants are a fast-growing segment of the U.S. Black population, but the dementia care needs and resources of this population are not fully understood. In this paper, we describe the process of working collaboratively with a community partner and project advisory board to conduct a culturally informed project. Specifically, we describe the process of developing culturally informed instruments to collect data on dementia care needs and resources among African immigrants. Working together with a diverse project advisory board, a guide was developed and used to conduct community conversations about experiences with dementia/memory loss. Transcripts from six conversations with 24 total participants were transcribed and analyzed thematically by two independent coders in Nvivo. These qualitative findings were used to inform the development of a survey for quantitative data collection that is currently ongoing. Themes (e.g., cultural attitudes, challenges, and current resources) from the community conversations that informed the survey are described briefly. Despite the challenges of conducting research during a global pandemic, having trusting relationships with a partnering community organization and project advisory board facilitated the successful development of instruments to conduct preliminary dementia care research in an underserved population. We anticipate that survey results will inform interventions that increase education, outreach, and access to dementia care and caregiving resources for this population. It may serve as a model for community–university partnerships for similar public health efforts in dementia as well as other chronic disease contexts.
Original language | English (US) |
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Article number | 4075 |
Journal | International journal of environmental research and public health |
Volume | 19 |
Issue number | 7 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Apr 1 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Research reported was supported by the University of Minnesota Program in Health Disparities Research (PHDR) Health Disparities Pilot Grants award #HD19CHI01. This award is administrated by the UMN PHDR and funded by the Office of Business & Community Economic Development (OBCED) Community Health Initiative (CHI), University of Minnesota. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the University of Minnesota. Moreover, this project was supported by the Robert L. Kane Endowed Chair at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. GB is supported by the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number T32CA163184 (Michele Allen, MD, MS; PI). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. Acknowledgments: We wish to thank all the members of our project advisory board and African Community Education Resource (ACER)?s interns who worked on this project.
Funding Information:
Funding: Research reported was supported by the University of Minnesota Program in Health Disparities Research (PHDR) Health Disparities Pilot Grants award #HD19CHI01. This award is administrated by the UMN PHDR and funded by the Office of Business & Community Economic Development (OBCED) Community Health Initiative (CHI), University of Minnesota. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the University of Minnesota. Moreover, this project was supported by the Robert L. Kane Endowed Chair at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. GB is supported by the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number T32CA163184 (Michele Allen, MD, MS; PI). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
Keywords
- African immigrants
- Africans
- community partnerships and needs assessment
- community-engaged research
- dementia education
- immigrants
- memory loss
- Humans
- Vulnerable Populations
- Blacks
- Universities
- Dementia/epidemiology
- Aged
- Emigrants and Immigrants
PubMed: MeSH publication types
- Journal Article
- Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
- Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't