Increasing Awareness of Alzheimer's Disease in the Latino Community

According to the Alzheimer’s Association, Latinos face a great risk of Alzheimer’s disease, due to a high prevalence of associated risk factors, like older age, low socioeconomic status, and the presence of vascular disease.  In fact, older Hispanics are at least 1.5 times more likely than older Whites to suffer from Alzheimer’s and other dementias.  Experts estimate that by 2050, the number of individuals aged 65 and older with Alzheimer’s is projected to reach between 11 million and 16 million—more than double today’s incidence. 

To address this issue, the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) developed and implemented a promotores de salud (community health workers) led Alzheimer’s education program, Mantenga Su Mente Activa in 2010.  In 2013, NCLR implemented a webinar training for program coordinators to train promotores de salud at their respective organizations.  Despite this novel method of conducting trainings for program coordinators, participants continued to demonstrate increased knowledge and awareness of Alzheimer’s symptoms, risk factors, and resources, evidenced by a 158% increase in knowledge about Alzheimer’s stages and its associated symptoms.  This was complemented by the creation of a bilingual awareness video.  Since 2010, Mantenga Su Mente Activa has reached over 3,000 Latinos in over 20 communities through face-to-face programming, while the video has reached nearly 20,000 impressions nationwide.  The success of the webinar training and bilingual video speaks to the power of new technologies to spread awareness in the Latino community.  It demonstrates that such methods can reach communities with limited resources in a meaningful way.