Notice Number: NOT-AG-14-022

Key Dates
Release Date: August 22, 2014

Issued by
National Institute on Aging (NIA)

Purpose

The National Institute on Aging (NIA) supports research to achieve National Alzheimer's Project Act (NAPA, see http://aspe.hhs.gov/daltcp/napa/ ) and G-8 Dementia Summit (see http://www.hhs.gov/asl/testify/2014/01/t20140115a.html) objectives related to tracking national prevalence and trends in dementia and Alzheimer's Disease in the United States and around the world.

In 2002-2003, NIA supported a Revision application from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), a nationally representative sample of Americans ages 50 and older, to conduct a sub-study of dementia. This dementia sub-study, called "Aging, Demographics, and Memory Study," or "ADAMS," provided national estimates of the prevalence and incidence of dementia and cognitive impairment for ages 71 and older.

Based on statistical approaches to modeling ADAMS diagnoses as functions of HRS measures, researchers have used the entire HRS sample to address important questions about the epidemiology and population impact of dementia. However, the ADAMS cohort or subsample of the HRS is aging and does not cover the cohorts now entering the age bands of highest risk.

Through this Notice, NIA invites eligible applicant institutions and applicants to submit U01 Revision applications to PAR-13-097, "NIA Limited Competition: Renewals of, and Revisions to, Existing Cooperative Agreement Awards (U01)" that request support for conducting a new, updated population study of dementia as a sub-study of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). NIA is interested in a second HRS dementia sub-study that is conducted on a larger HRS sub-sample than the one in the original ADAMS.

NIA encourages applicants to recruit a sample of individuals large enough to allow for more precise estimates of prevalence in sub-groups of interest (e.g., health disparities by racial/ethnic groups) and for understanding the trajectories of initially mild impairment.

Furthermore, NIA is interested in a second HRS dementia sub-study that is conducted at a significantly lower cost per case. This might build on recent experience in a number of studies with algorithmic approaches to dementia assessment using short computer-assisted personal interviews by trained survey interviewers.

Due to cost considerations and the desire that the proposed approach be readily adaptable for use in studies around the world that are harmonized with the HRS, NIA does not anticipate that clinical dementia assessment on all participants or neuroimaging would be part of this study.

NIA encourages applicants to include the collection of venous blood in order to have samples in the future for the validation, in a nationally representative sample, of potential fluid-based biomarkers of AD or progression to AD.

NIA plans to commit up to $2 million in total costs in FY2015 and up to $7 million in total costs in FY2016 to support a second HRS dementia sub-study.

Inquiries

Please direct all inquiries to:

Georgeanne E. Patmios
National Institute on Aging (NIA)
Telephone: 301-496-3138
Email: [email protected]