Establishing the science behind Alzheimer's recruitment registries: opportunities for increasing diversity and accelerating enrollment into trials

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACTWith the singular focus on COVID-19 in both the media environment and in the everyday lives of most people,it is not clear how perceptions of other health conditions may shift, especially among older adults who areparticularly vulnerable to COVID-19. Research demonstrates a tendency for individuals to allow their attitudestowards one salient issue to impact their attitudes and behaviors towards unrelated, but similar other issues(i.e., spillover effects). Given the emphasis on science and research in COVID-19 discourse, it is important toassess whether older adults' pandemic experiences may "spillover" to their perceptions of scientific research inways that may affect their willingness to participate in Alzheimer's disease (AD)-related research efforts. In thisproject, we propose to examine how information sources on COVID-19 and the larger context of the pandemicinfluence older adults' perceptions of scientific research and AD, adherence to recommended COVID-19prevention behaviors, and whether these perceptions vary by racial/ethnic group. This research is critical todetermine whether COVID-19 spillover is changing how individuals perceive both AD as a health risk and callsto participate in AD research such as enrolling in recruitment registries. Grounded in Spreading ActivationTheory and the Reasoned Action Approach (RAA), we propose two aims. First, to determine the extent towhich COVID-19 news coverage and lived experiences change perceptions of scientific research andwillingness to participate in AD-related research, we employ a mixed methods approach using surveys andcontent analysis. We conduct a series of repeated cross-sectional surveys over a period of 12 months tomonitor how changes in the pandemic and in news coverage may be related to attitude shifts about researchgenerally and specific to AD and AD risk. Survey data will be collected across 12 waves from a nationalsample stratified by the race groups that correspond to the groups of interest in the parent award (white,Hispanic, Black). Data are collected monthly, which allows for capturing perceptual shifts as the COVID-19situation changes rapidly. A theory-driven content analysis of news coverage from main news sources,coinciding with the surveys, will also be conducted with the goal of understanding the extent and nature ofCOVID-19 information and misinformation, including topics such as racial disparities in COVID-19 morbidityand mortality and emphasis on older adults and racial minorities as vulnerable populations. The second aimidentifies relevant psychosocial determinants (attitudes, norms, efficacy/control) of subsequent COVID-19-related health behaviors (i.e., preparation, prevention) for older adults using the RAA. We collect a follow-upwave of data (Wave 2) from the Wave 1/Baseline from the repeated cross-sectional surveys and predict howeffects of exposure to media and interpersonal messages are mediated through attitudes, norms, and efficacyto predict subsequent COVID-19 recommended behaviors. Together these two aims allow for a test of COVID-19 spillover into AD-related attitudes and willingness to participate in AD research.