Yuma County has the highest Alzheimer’s disease prevalence among Arizonas 65 and older, and Coconino County has the lowest, according to new county-level estimates.
Estimates of Alzheimer’s disease prevalence in all 3,142 US counties were shared at a meeting Monday. Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in Amsterdam . A data analysis conducted by researchers at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago was published. Published in Alzheimer’s Society magazine On the same day.
non-profit organizationsAlzheimer’s Society The data are the first to narrow the prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease to specific counties, highlighting areas where people with dementia need the most services, such as home care assistants, neurologists, and geriatricians. The researchers said it could be more accurately captured. Researchers estimate that about 151,500 Arizonas over the age of 65 have Alzheimer’s disease, which means that one in nine older Arizonas has Alzheimer’s disease. .
Yuma County has the highest rate of Alzheimer’s disease among seniors in Arizona, with 13.3% of seniors having Alzheimer’s disease, followed closely by Santa Cruz and Greenlee counties, where the county’s elderly residents The researchers estimated that 13.2% of the population had Alzheimer’s disease.
“We have needed this data for a very long time. I mean, think about our public health response. It’s very difficult to figure out where we need to build,” said Kinsey McManus, program director of the Alzheimer’s Association Desert Southwest Chapter. “When you look at counties like Yuma, they’re seriously understaffed compared to the real world.”
In Maricopa County, Arizona’s most populous county, about 81,000 seniors, or 11.1% of the population over the age of 65, have Alzheimer’s disease, researchers said. Aging Project and National Center for Health Statistics 2020 Population Projections.
Older blacks, Hispanics more likely to be affected than others
McManus said county-specific information is especially important because local Alzheimer’s associations are working with the Arizona Department of Health to develop strategic statewide Alzheimer’s and dementia plans. rice field. The association has so far used “rough estimates” of where Alzheimer’s patients are concentrated in Arizona, but more precision is important when considering where to set up and focus services. Become. she said.
In general, researchers found that older adults in southern Arizona counties had a higher prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease than older adults in northern Arizona counties. Coconino County had the lowest rate of Alzheimer’s disease among those 65 and older in Arizona. Elderly prevalence in Apache, Navajo, and Yavapai counties was also lower than the state average.
“Several southern counties have high Hispanic/Latino populations, and Hispanic whites are found to be 1.5 times more likely to have Alzheimer’s disease and dementia than non-Hispanic whites,” McManus said. said Mr. “I think that’s an important part of part of this problem… there are counties that have much higher rates of people over the age of 65, but not as high rates of people with Alzheimer’s disease.”
In Yavapai County, for example, 35% of the population is over the age of 65, McManus said, compared to 20% in Yuma County.
“That means there’s a big difference numerically, but at the same time, Yavapai County isn’t as diverse as Yuma, which is a border county,” she said. “We’re talking about populations at much higher risk of disease.”
The researchers found that older blacks were about twice as likely to develop Alzheimer’s and other dementias than older whites, and older Hispanics were about 1.5 more likely to develop Alzheimer’s and other dementias. Said it was double.
At least part of the explanation for racial disparities is that people of color who experience marginalization from the health care system generally have poorer health and generally have higher poverty rates than whites. Age is the biggest risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease some research Researchers have found that other factors such as high blood pressure, obesity and lack of exercise increase people’s risk.
“We talk about heart health being important to brain health, so it’s not surprising that[Alzheimer’s]rates are slightly higher in areas that struggle more with heart health,” he said. Mr McManus said.
Overall, the study found that the eastern and southeastern regions of the United States had the highest prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease among older residents, with the highest rates in Maryland, New York, and Mississippi. The high proportion of older, black, and Hispanic residents in these areas may be part of the reason, write the authors.
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Limited data on indigenous people with Alzheimer’s disease
McManus said he was surprised by the low prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease in Navajo and Apache counties, which have high concentrations of Native Americans. He said the Alzheimer’s Association plans to study its population more closely to ensure that county-level estimates accurately reflect the state of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia in northern Arizona counties. said.
In fact, one of the limitations to the county-specific data is the estimate of prevalence among Native Americans and Alaska Natives, write the Chicago researchers, who wrote that their estimate was for Blacks, Hispanics, and Americans. , and described it as focusing on the white population. As the authors stated in 2016: study Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco and Kaiser Permanente studied six racial and ethical groups over a 14-year period and found higher rates of dementia among Native Americans than among whites.
Arizona was not one of the states with the highest prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease, but Maricopa County has the third-highest Alzheimer’s population in the county after Los Angeles County, California and Cook County, Illinois. There was found.
Also, county-level estimates are for 2020, and based on previous projections, Arizona is expected to see a significant increase in the number of residents with Alzheimer’s disease between 2020 and 2025. The western and southwestern regions of the United States are expected to see the greatest increase in the percentage of people with Alzheimer’s disease in the next five years, according to the Alzheimer’s Association.
“In addition to raising awareness of the Alzheimer’s disease crisis in specific communities, this information will help public health programs better fund, staff and other resources to care for people with Alzheimer’s disease and all other dementias. It could help with proper allocation,” said Professor Kumar Rajan of Rush Medical School. “Alzheimer’s dementia is a multifactorial disease with several risk characteristics that interact with demographic risk factors and ultimately contribute to morbidity,” the study authors said in a written statement. rice field.
McManus said Arizona is underserved for Alzheimer’s patients, a national problem.
“As a state, we have a lot to grow with professionals, home health care and personal care adjuncts,” she said. “The reality is that without a cure, the disease is progressive, making it increasingly difficult to care for people with it. We don’t have enough people on the ground to do that.It really serves the needs of the community.”
Contact HealthCare Reporter Stephanie Innes. Stephanie.Innes@gannett.com Or call 602-444-8369. follow her on her twitter @Stephanie Innes.
