Coordinating Center on the Economics of Alzheimer’s Disease and Alzheimer’s Disease-Related Dementias: Prevention, Treatment, and Care
The NBER Coordinating Center on the Economics of Alzheimer’s Disease and Alzheimer’s Disease-Related Dementias (AD/ADRD) Prevention, Treatment, and Care conducts and coordinates a range of research projects related to these dementias, which are projected to become increasingly prevalent as the US population ages, and pose profound challenges to our health and long-term care systems. Providing care to individuals with AD/ADRD is complicated by their potential limitations in their capacity to communicate and engage. A growing body of research offers new insights on both the prevention and treatment of AD/ADRD.
The Center is funded by the National Institute on Aging (NIA) as part of its Consortium for Economic Research on AD/ADRD. Its goals include launching new research projects through annual awards of research grants, coordinating collaboration and synergy among the research teams that receive support from the Consortium as well as others carrying out related research, and expanding the network of researchers studying the economics of AD/ADRD through early career grants, engaging committed partners from research and policy communities, and disseminating research findings. The Center strives to develop new research findings and to facilitate their translation to practice in order to improve the health and wellbeing of those living with AD/ADRD and their families. A number of the center’s outreach and translation initiatives are managed by Rose Li and Associates (RLA).
Center Leadership
Rhoda Au is Professor of Anatomy and Neurobiology, Neurology, Medicine & Epidemiology at the Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine and School of Public Health, and one of the PIs of the Framingham Heart Study Brain Aging Program, where she is Director of Neuropsychology. She is also part of the Diagnostics Accelerator, which strives to fast-track the development of accessible and non-invasive tools to revolutionize AD diagnosis and treatment.
Julie Bynum is the Margaret Terpenning Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School, and Director of the NIA-funded Center to Accelerate Population Research in Alzheimer’s (CAPRA). She is also PI on an R01 studying healthcare patterns across the full spectrum of cognitive decline in a racially diverse population, and on a state contract studying provision of long-term services in nursing homes and Medicaid waivers.
Kathleen McGarry is the Chair of the Economics Department at UCLA. She is a leading scholar in the study of long-term care expenditures, caregiving relationships and burdens within families. She is currently the Director of the NBER project on Alzheimer's Disease and Approaches to Long-Term care in the United States and Around the World.
Susan Stewart is a gerontologist with a long record of collaborating with economists to study the relationship between inputs to the health care system and outputs as measured by population health status and quality-adjusted life expectancy. Before joining the Coordinating Center, she was a research specialist for nearly two decades on the NIA-funded Satellite National Health Accounts (NHA) project.