Study Term
2026

Status
In Progress

Georgia ranks among the top 10 states for the prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and related dementias. Approximately 70% of Georgia is rural, and 90% of counties face severe shortages of healthcare professionals, leaving rural older adults with limited access to major clinical trial sites. The launch of the Cognitive Aging Research and Education (CARE) Center: Trials on Rural ADRD Cohort (CARE-TRAC) will enable participants to register for research through an accessible online portal or interactive digital kiosks located in every rural county through the University of Georgia’s (UGA) Cooperative Extension network. Then, a trial dataset of 4,500 individuals will be used to develop deep learning artificial intelligence models that can remotely identify which individuals are most likely to have elevated levels of amyloid, a key protein associated with early AD risk. Next, these models will be piloted within UGA’s Extension-based recruitment approach among 100 rural cognitively healthy older adults, who will be matched with research opportunities. The share of participants who successfully connect with and enroll in studies will be tracked, with the long-term goal of creating a scalable national blueprint for land-grant universities to recruit rural individuals into AD research. 

Within the last two years, UGA’s CARE Center has conducted more than 130 community engagement events in rural Georgia (reaching over 1,500 individuals), led a statewide rural dementia needs assessment (N=556), and completed biological health AD health risk screenings statewide (N=930). Lessons learned through these efforts were critical for the development of CARE-TRAC. During implementation, participants will be surveyed on their experiences with the program and ways to improve it moving forward.