How social and behavioral factors affect Alzheimer's risk in U.S. veterans
Official title: Social and behavioral determinants of health and Alzheimer’s Disease: Cohort study of the US military veteran population
Funded at University of Massachusetts Lowell · NIH-11304488 · Data updated 2026-11-12
Using veterans' medical records, this project looks for links between housing, finances, behaviors, and Alzheimer's risk to help identify who might be at higher risk.
Quick facts
| Grant type | R01 grant |
|---|---|
| Study type | NIH-funded research |
| Funding institution | University of Massachusetts Lowell NIH-funded |
| Lab location | 1 site (Lowell, United States) |
| Project start | March 1, 2023 |
| Project end | February 29, 2028 |
| Funding year | 2026 |
| Award (this year) | $1,477,571 |
| NIH project number | 5R01AG080670-04 |
| Project ID | NIH-11304488 on NIH RePORTER |
Who could benefit from this research
✓Could help
U.S. military veterans with accessible electronic health records—especially older adults (65+)—are the primary population this work targets.
✕Less likely to help
Younger people, non-veterans, or anyone without usable medical records are unlikely to be included or see direct benefits from this project.
What this research studies
This project will review thousands of clinical notes from U.S. veterans to find mentions of social and behavioral issues such as job loss, food insecurity, smoking, and mental health. Researchers will manually review about 10,000 notes to create examples and then train natural language processing (NLP) tools to automatically extract these social determinants and signs of cognitive decline from unstructured electronic health records. The team will combine the NLP-enriched social and behavioral data with medical diagnoses to see how these factors relate to Alzheimer's disease and early cognitive decline. The focus is on veterans, especially older adults, to better understand risks that could inform prevention or early-detection efforts.
Why it matters
Potential benefit: If successful, the work could reveal modifiable social and behavioral risks and help clinicians spot veterans at higher risk for Alzheimer's earlier.
How similar studies have gone: NLP has been used before to extract social determinants from clinical notes in other settings, but applying these methods specifically to Alzheimer's risk in a large veteran cohort is relatively new.
Where this research is happening
-
University of Massachusetts Lowell
Lowell, United States Active
Researchers
- Principal investigator: Yu, Hong — University of Massachusetts Lowell
- Study coordinator: Yu, Hong
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About this research
- This is an active NIH-funded research project — typically early-stage science, not a clinical trial accepting patient enrollment.
- Some NIH-funded labs run parallel clinical studies or seek volunteers for related work. To check, contact the principal investigator or institution listed above.
- For full project details, budget, and progress reports, visit the official NIH RePORTER page.