Research Study
Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD) pose a significant burden on minority communities, with African Americans being twice as likely and Latinos 1.5 times more likely to develop ADRD compared to white Americans.
Because of this disparity, the Alzheimer’s Association advocates for better management of risk factors such as high blood pressure and diabetes among these groups. Although medications are effective in managing hypertension and diabetes, medication adherence among African American and Latino populations are very low compared to the rest of the population.
To address this issue, Pilltrax is leading an R&D effort funded by National Institute on Aging (NIA, part of NIH), to develop a novel medication management system. In an effort to assess the feasibility of such a system, the research team is conducting a clinician-based interview study.
The team plans to interview a number of clinicians who care for older African American and Latino patients to identify obstacles to adherence, particularly the obstacles that are unique to these groups. By understanding providers’ perspectives, the R&D project will incorporate their insights to develop a system for improving medication adherence among these vulnerable populations.
Study Team
Alvin (Al) Ramsey, PhD: At Pilltrax, I am the Principal Investigator of the NIH-funded research project that focuses on medication adherence for older adults in underserved populations. I am bi-racial of African American and Korean descent, and I am also the caregiver for a disabled geriatric family member. My educational background is in engineering and I received my BS and MS from MIT and my PhD from Berkeley. For the past 20 years I have specialized in healthcare informatics, focusing on various applications such as optimizing patient resource allocation, medication patient safety, and clinical decision support for hospital inpatient care. Recently I conceived and patented the idea of a cost-effective digital pillbox requiring only a smartphone for operation. Initial market testing revealed a significant demand from older adults who were not very comfortable with smartphone technology, prompting a pivot towards exploring a new solution for this target population.
Lauren Moo, MD: I grew up in Boston in a mixed-race family (Chinese Jamaican and Jewish). After attending Tufts University School of Medicine and completing Neurology residency and fellowship training at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, I am now a Cognitive Behavioral Neurologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School. I am also the Site Director of the New England Geriatrics Research Education and Clinical Center (GRECC) at the VA Bedford Healthcare System where my research and clinical innovation projects focus on the intersection between Aging, Technology, and family Caregivers.
Maria Venegas, PhD: I am a Latina medical anthropologist from Mexico. I received my PhD at the University of Pittsburgh and completed a Postdoctoral research fellowship at the Department of Psychiatry at Dartmouth College. Currently, I am a qualitative researcher at the Center for Healthcare Organization & Implementation Research (CHOIR) and the New England Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Center (GRECC), at the VA Bedford. My research uses qualitative methods to identify barriers and facilitators to adapting technology for the management of care among older adults.