Abstract Body

Disparities in AD health care are a major problem. Blacks and Latinos are more as likely to develop AD compared to non-/Latino Whites, but racial and ethnic Under-Represented Populations (URPs) remain less likely to be participants in AD research. Until recently, the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI)had relatively low enrollment of URPs, which greatly limited generalizability of our data. In 2020, we launched culturally-tailored recruitment initiatives at 13 ADNI sites, together with a digital advertising/social media marketing campaign aimed specifically at URPs. Prior to the campaign, rate of enrollment was 1.1 URP/month. The campaign increased enrollment to 4 URP/month, a 264% increase in the “monthly rate.” New participant enrollment, the URP enrollment went from 89 (16.8%) to 126 (21.1%) representing a 25% increase in percent enrollment during the last year. In the last 6 months, there have been 43 new enrollments into ADNI3. Of these 43 participants, 33 (77%) were from URPs. For ADNI4, a new Engagement Core which will deploy a culturally-informed community engaged research approach using a Community-Scientific Partnership Advisory Board and ethnoculturally-concordant, recruiters and retention support. Their efforts will be facilitated by culturally-tailored digital advertising and locally-branded racial and ethnic websites. The goal is to reach ~20,000 individuals (50-60% who are URPs) to complete an online, digital screener with the goal to identify 4,000 participants for a plasma AD biomarker study, leading to in-clinic enrollment of 500 participants (50-60% URPs). We expect these efforts to serve as a potential new model for AD clinical research.