Nationwide study explores links between environmental factors and Alzheimer's disease

Researchers at the University of Kansas Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center are part of a national effort to explore the relationship between Alzheimer’s disease, environmental factors and lifetime experiences.

“Factors such as rural residence, socioeconomic challenges, environmental exposures and access to health care vary widely and may contribute to differences in long-term brain health,” said Jill Morris, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Neurology at KU Medical Center and co-investigator on the study.

Led by the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, the Neighborhoods Study has been awarded a second round of funding, $30.9 million, from the National Institutes of Health. With this renewed funding, the study will assess lead-contaminated infrastructure exposure, job-related toxin exposures that people experience throughout their lifetimes and heavy metals in brain tissue. The goal is to better understand what makes certain populations especially vulnerable to Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.

The Neighborhoods Study involves 24 Alzheimer’s Disease Research Centers across the country that will collaborate to look at the effect of social and environmental factors such as poverty, education, housing, employment and toxins — also known as the social exposome — on Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. The study is also the largest in the world to connect social exposome with brain tissues and their disease biomarkers.  

“Through our participation in this study, we are generating evidence that captures the unique geographic, rural, and socioeconomic characteristics of our region,” Morris said. “Identifying potentially modifiable environmental and social factors that influence dementia risk can have substantial benefit to prevention efforts.”

As its research continues, the Neighborhoods Study is expected to facilitate prevention measures that are precisely tailored to populations at highest risk based on exposures. Its work focuses on risk mitigation and new interventions in Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, advancing knowledge of the relationship between the social exposome and dementia to improve health for all. It is the largest research of its kind linking brain tissue to life-long exposures to more fully examine the precise mechanisms by which the social exposome impacts dementia risk and outcomes.