The Neighborhoods Study (TNS) is the largest research study to explore the impact of social and environmental factors — also known as the social exposome — on Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD).
The Center for Health Disparities Research (CHDR) at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health is pleased to announce the publication of a new article on the innovative methods and preliminary findings of our major investigation, The Neighborhoods Study (TNS). Leveraging twenty-two Alzheimer’s Disease Research Centers, TNS is the largest study to explore the impact of the social exposome on brain health. While study activities are ongoing, this new publication offers insight into the key contributions of TNS, which promises to advance exposome science to new heights.
Led by CHDR Research Scientist Grace George, PhD and published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia, “The Neighborhoods Study: Examining the social exposome in Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias” offers a general overview of the TNS, its methodology, and initial findings, which indicate a relationship between adverse social exposures and ADRD biomarkers, neuropathology, and cognitive function.
Broadly, TNS seeks to establish feasible new ways to connect the social exposome to biological markers of the ADRD in order to measure how social and environmental disadvantage at the neighborhood level over the course of an individual’s lifetime impacts their brain health. In order to do so, the study relies on two major innovations:
- By leveraging the brain banks of twenty-two sites across the National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded ADRC network, TNS builds critical infrastructure and scientific consortium to facilitate research exploring the relationship between adverse social exposome exposure and ADRD.
- TNS uses a novel residential history method that leverages public archival data to construct residential histories geocoded to Area Deprivation Index (ADI) measures of disadvantage for the full life-course of brain bank donors. Through this method, TNS generates a unique and rich collection of social exposome data, offering insight on environmental and exposomal factors that impact brain health and may be modifiable. Such data unlocks new possibilities for understanding ADRD risk pathways.
We know that where a person lives affects their health. Thanks to the innovative research infrastructure and methodology of TNS, we now have new pathways toward understanding the specific mechanisms by which the adverse exposome shapes brain health and ADRD outcomes. In doing so, TNS also offers new opportunities to design precision approaches to mitigate dementia risk. In the words of George et al.,
“Much is yet to come for TNS across the ADRD research landscape.”