IMPACT Health Equity Team associate leader María Aranda, PhD, MSW, MPA, LCSW, is featured in, “Our America: Unforgettable,” a new documentary special produced by ABC Owned Television Stations in partnership with ABC News. The program provides insight into what life is like for families facing Alzheimer’s disease and presents the alarming data of the disease through a Hispanic and Latino lens.

According to the Alzheimer’s Association, people from Hispanic and Latino populations are 1.5x more likely than non-Hispanic White people to develop Alzheimer’s and other dementias. In this hour-long special, two families share their experiences on caregiving, and experts in the field, including Dr. Aranda, describe the disparities impacting Hispanic and Latino populations in relation to Alzheimer’s disease. They explore questions about why Alzheimer’s disease manifests differently and more frequently in these communities and describe greater inclusion in research and clinical trials as an essential way of answering these questions and improving care.

Learn more about the program and access the full video here or find it streaming on ABC services. Watch the trailer on YouTube. The episode includes close captioning in both Spanish and English.

IMPACT members, including multiple principal investigator Vince Mor, PhD, Antonia Bennett, PhD, Kathleen Unroe, MD, and Scott Halpern, MD, PhD are participating in a two-day public workshop organized by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, November 2-3, 2023 in Washington DC.

The workshop will explore existing evidence, knowledge gaps and opportunities to advance future research for serious illness care. The workshop is titled “Serious Illness Care Research: Exploring Current Knowledge, Emerging Evidence and Future Directions.”

Presentations and discussions will focus on:

• Inclusive research approaches to advance health equity in care
• Safe and effective therapies to address pain and other physical and psychological symptoms
• Quality measurement for serious illness
• The integration of behavioral/mental health care into serious illness care, delivery models that address the patient and family needs
• Opportunities for research coordination and collaboration

View the full agenda and register.

IMPACT Health Equity Team leader Maria Aranda, PhD, MSW  was featured in a segment on NPRs Morning Edition on September 18, 2023.  In the segment,  NPR’s A Martínez spoke with Dr. Aranda, of the USC Edward R. Roybal Institute on Aging, and Mario Tapia, founder of the Latino Center, about quality of care issues once a dementia diagnosis is made . They discussed the cultural considerations in caring for Latino patients with dementia including the importance of language, food and music and the need for culturally competent nursing home staff working with Latino patients living with dementia.

Listen to the full interview.

IMPACT Health Equity Team (HET) leader Ana Quiñones, PhD, MS and colleague Dr. Anne Trontell reflected on health equity in the embedded pragmatic clinical trials (ePCTs) landscape during the 2023 NIH Pragmatic Trials Collaboratory Annual Steering Committee Meeting.

The focus of the meeting was health equity in ePCTs and Quiñones spoke about the efforts of the NIA IMPACT Collaboratory to include health equity approaches in all aspects of its care and research efforts, resulting in a series of best practice recommendations.

Comments from both scholars were published in the NIH Pragmatic Trials Collaboratory website, rethinkingclinicaltrials.org.

Read the full article.