Summary
Authors study cognitive aging and dementia in Asian Americans, particularly in Vietnamese Americans, the fourth-largest Asian subgroup in the United States. This longitudinal study provides a unique opportunity to more fully delineate psychosocial factors that contribute to dementia disparities in diverse and under‐engaged populations.
The Vietnamese Insights into Cognitive Aging Program (VIP) investigates early life adversity and war‐related trauma and their associations with cognitive health in a community‐based sample of older Vietnamese Americans in Northern California (i.e., Sacramento and Santa Clara counties). Baseline measurements include a comprehensive neuropsychological battery, including measures of global cognition along with executive function, semantic memory, and episodic memory. Data also include measures of functioning, early life adversity and trauma exposure, and psychosocial and traditional cardiovascular disease risk factors. Cognitive assessments will be repeated twice over the course of the data collection period, approximately 12‐ and 24‐ months post‐baseline. Blood samples collected during Wave 2 will be assayed for biochemical risk factors.
This study uses 2022 California Health Interview (CHIS) data in the RIGHTS study.
Findings: Baseline assessments were conducted from January 2022 to November 2023, with 548 Vietnamese Americans; mean age of 73 ± 5.31 years and 55% of participants were women. There were significant differences in social factors by site, with Santa Clara participants having higher education and marginally higher incomes compared to Sacramento participants. A higher percentage of Santa Clara participants reported speaking English well or very well (24%) compared to Sacramento participants (13%), although the majority of the entire sample (81%) reported speaking some to no English (response options: not at all; some/a little bit; well/very well).
Future work will examine cognition, the prevalence of mild cognitive impairment and dementia, and other health outcomes, while controlling for site differences in all analyses.
History of war and trauma may contribute to Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD)–related burden. VIP may provide insight into ADRD burden in other understudied groups.
