Quantifying Cognitive Bias in Post-acute Decision Making After Stroke

After a stroke, nearly 80% of individuals live with a degree of chronic functional impairment. Advances in acute stroke treatment have resulted in a significant decline in mortality, with more people requiring post-acute rehabilitation after surviving a stroke. Indeed, individuals with stroke are among some of the highest, most costly users of post-acute care. The incidence of stroke and its associated costs is projected to surge as the population ages, creating an urgent need to maximize care transitions.

Aging, Housing, and Fertility

Households born between 1945 to 1964 ("Baby Boomers’’) own a larger fraction of the housing stock at any given age than any of the generations before or after them, driven by home ownership patterns following the Great Financial Crisis and overall housing returns. In an overlapping-generations model, this does not necessarily displace younger cohorts from the housing market as they eventually inherit the housing wealth. However, baby boomers also live longer, raising the age at which younger cohorts receive the wealth.

Analyzing the Impact of Countervailing Payment Changes: Study of MA and the ACA

In 2023, over half of Medicare beneficiaries were enrolled in Medicare Advantage (MA), costing the federal government over $350M in payments to MA plans. Passing the 50% threshold has put a spotlight on potentially  excessive payments to these MA plans. However, these concerns are not a new phenomenon. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) made major changes to MA payments in response to growing concerns about the overpayment of MA plans. The first major change was benchmark changes that cut base payments.

Deprivation, epigenetic aging, and resilience to behavioral-variant frontotemporal degeneration

Behavioral-variant frontotemporal degeneration (bvFTD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that involves impairments in emotional regulation, personality, and executive function and is characterized by substantial heterogeneity in rate of clinical progression. Neighborhood deprivation is associated with lower resilience to neurodegenerative disease and accelerated epigenetic aging but this has not been investigated in bvFTD.

Understanding the Dynamic Process of Older Adult Behavior Changes for Disaster Preparedness: An Application of the Integrated Transtheoretical Model with Social Cognitive Theory and Protection Motivation Theory

Conceptualized as a dynamic process of individual health protective mechanism, disaster preparedness is defined as individual behavior changes in this study, from “not prepared” (NP) stage to “having an intention to prepare” (IP) stage, and ultimately to “already prepared” (AP) stage. Although older adults are much more vulnerable to the health effects of disasters than their middle age and young adult counterparts, the extent to which behavioral transitions from one stage to another differ across the two groups has not been explored.

Alcohol Use, Genetics, and Cognitive Decline

Alcohol use disorder (AUD) is one of the most pronounced public health concerns in the U.S. and cause an enormous burden to the society. In 2019, 14.5 million people of age 12 and older have AUD but only 7.2% of them had received treatment in the past year. Moreover, AUD may be correlated with cognitive decline and dementia could be a onerous burden to Individuals, family members, and the society. Both alcohol consumption and cognitive decline are often correlated to many unoberved factors such as genetics, personality traits, and risk perception therefore resulting in endogneity concerns.

Identifying Visual Impairment in Older Adults Using Administrative Claims Data

Visual impairment is common in older adults and is associated with negative outcomes such as falls, depression, anxiety, and cognitive impairment. Because half of all vision loss in the U.S. is preventable or treatable, identifying the burden and consequences of age-related visual impairment can lead to interventions to promote access to eye care and improve population health. Administrative claims data (e.g.

Predictors of Cognitive Health in Sub-Saharan Africa: Comparative Perspective from Ghana and Malawi

The overall aim of this pilot project is to conduct comparative analyses and generate findings on the predictors of cognitive health among older individuals in Ghana and Malawi, two Sub-Saharan African countries at different levels of development, Ghana being low-middle-income country and Malawi a low-income country. Importantly, these findings will inform planned pilot data collection activities to test the Harmonized Cognitive Assessment Protocol  (HCAP) in both countries and the integration of HCAP in the nationally representative WHO SAGE survey in Ghana.

Spirituality and Brain Health in Older Adults

Historically underrepresented populations experience a disproportionate burden of age-related cognitive disorders compared to non-White populations. As a salient resource for coping in Black communities, spirituality may be associated with better brain health, yet research is limited, especially in this population. This study aims to examine: 1) associations between spirituality and cognition, 2) identify possible differences across racial groups and, 3) explore the role of spirituality as a moderator between AD blood biomarkers and cognition.