Dr. Babulal and Dr. Trani sharing senior authorship from the GRID lab collaborated with Dr Beth Shaaban, University of Pittsburgh – School of Nursing, and a team of coauthors (Vidyani Suryadevara, PhD Ashley Hill Sadaf Milani Puja Agarwal Neelum T. Aggarwal, MD Rufus Akinyemi Suvarna Alladi Dr. Monique J. B. Jessica Z Kirkland Caldwell, Ph.D., ABPP-CN Paulo Caramelli Lyndsey DuBose Ratnavalli Ellajosyula Darlingtina Esiaka, PhD, CPG, CPH Allison Gibson hashtag#PatrickGriffith Joshua Harper Wambūi K. hashtag#WeiLi Jorge Llibre-Guerra Samantha Loi Michelle Mielke Doris Molina-Henry Prof.Adesola Ogunniyi hashtag#ShehrooPudumji Shana Stites, PsyD Erin Sundermann Arlener D. Turner, Ph.D. Clara Vila-Castelar, PhD Jaya Viswanathan, PhD) in a study published in Nature Aging entitled: “The Population Neuroscience-Dementia Syndemics Framework to better understand global sex and gender-based risk in low- and middle-income countries”.
By 2050, it is estimated that 68% of dementia cases worldwide will be in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Despite this, most of our current understanding of dementia comes from research in high-income countries, which often fails to capture the unique, compounding risks faced by populations—and especially women—in LMICs.
In this article, we introduce the Population Neuroscience-Dementia Syndemics (PNDS) Framework to bridge this gap.
One aspect we prioritized for inclusion in this work is the examination of extreme situations as syndemic risk factors, including:
*War & conflict
*Climate change & natural disasters
*Political unrest & oppression
*Displacement & the experiences of refugees and migrants
These are essential but neglected factors in dementia risk. We highlight how these situations are deeply intertwined with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), acknowledging that global crises like environmental degradation and violence are critical brain health issues.
Our framework provides a roadmap to better understand and ultimately reduce this disproportionate burden by:
*Integrating Social and Biological Factors: Moving beyond biology alone to see how factors like poverty, gender norms, and climate change cluster to impact the brain.
*Identifying Context-Dependent Mechanisms: Pinpointing specific spatiotemporal domains of deprivation and resilience and their related Structural and Social Determinants of Health (S/SDOH) to inform more precise and effective public health interventions for dementia in LMICs.
*Prioritizing External Validity: Calling for representative, population-based studies that are generalizable to the diverse populations in LMICs.
Read the full perspective here: https://lnkd.in/ehC_PFam Freely accessible link to the full text: https://rdcu.be/eZ7fL