Background: Racial/ethnic minorities have among the highest risks for Alzheimer disease and dementia, but remain underrepresented in clinical research studies.Objective: To synthesize the current evidence on strategies to recruit and retain racial/ethnic minorities in Alzheimer disease and dementia clinical research.Methods: We conducted a systematic review by searching CINAHL, EMBASE, MEDLINE, PsycINFO, and Scopus. We included studies that met four criteria: (1) included a racial/ethnic minority group (African American, Latino, Asian, American Indian or Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander); (2) implemented a recruitment or retention strategy for Alzheimer disease or dementia clinical research; (3) conducted within the U.S.; and (4) published in a peer-reviewed journal.Results: Of the 19 included studies, 14 (73.7%) implemented recruitment strategies and 5 (26.3%) implemented both recruitment and retention strategies. Fifteen studies (78.9%) focused on African Americans, two (10.6%) on both African Americans and Latinos, and two (10.5%) on Asians. All the articles were rated weak in the study quality. Four major themes were identified for the recruitment strategies: community outreach (94.7%), advertisement (57.9%), collaboration with health care providers (42.1%), and referral (21.1%). Three major themes were identified for the retention strategies: follow-up communication (15.8%), maintain community relationship (15.8%), and convenience (10.5%).Conclusion: Our findings highlight several promising recruitment and retention strategies that investigators should prioritize when allocating limited resources, however, additional well-designed studies are needed. By recruiting and retaining more racial/ethnic minorities in Alzheimer disease and dementia research, investigators may better understand the heterogeneity of disease progression among marginalized groups. PROSPERO registration #CRD42018081979.

Context: The first imported US Ebola hemorrhagic fever case during the 2014 West Africa Ebola outbreak triggered an increase in online activity through various social media platforms, including Twitter. Objectives: The purpose of our study was to examine characteristics of local health departments (LHDs) tweeting about Ebola, in addition to how and when LHDs were communicating Ebola-related messages. Design: All tweets sent by 287 LHDs known to be using Twitter were collected from September 3 to November 2, 2014. Twitter data were merged with the 2013 National Association of County & City Health Officials Profile study to assess LHD characteristics associated with sending Ebola-related tweets. To examine the content of Ebola tweets, we reviewed all such tweets and developed a codebook including 4 major message categories: information giving, news update, event promotion, and preparedness. A time line tracking the trends in Ebola tweets was created by aligning daily tweets with major Ebola news events posted on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Ebola Web site. Results: Approximately 60% (n = 174) of all LHDs using Twitter sent a total of 1648 Ebola-related tweets during the study period. Sending more tweets in general (odds ratio: 2.42; 95% confidence interval, 1.00-5.84) and employing at least 1 public information specialist (odds ratio: 2.61; 95% confidence interval, 1.14-5.95) significantly increased the odds that an LHD tweeted about Ebola. Of all the Ebola tweets collected, 78.6% were information giving, 22.5% were on preparedness, 20.8% were news updates, and 10.3% were event promotion tweets. A temporal analysis of Ebola tweets indicated 5 distinct waves, each corresponding with major Ebola news events. Conclusions: Twitter has become a communication tool frequently used by many LHDs to respond to novel outbreaks, but messaging strategies vary widely across LHDs. We recommend that LHDs increase tweet frequency during public health emergencies in order to ensure timely dissemination of critical information.

Objectives: To analyze how neighborhood physical disorder and social cohesion are associated with racial and ethnic disparities in dementia risk. Methods: Nine years of data (2011–2019) were retrieved from the National Health and Aging Trends Study, a nationally representative U.S. older adult (age 65+) sample. Cox regression analyzed time to dementia diagnosis using composite scores for neighborhood physical disorder and social cohesion. Results: Higher baseline neighborhood physical disorder (Adjusted Hazard Ratio [aHR]=1.11, 95% Confidence Interval [CI]=1.01–1.23) and increased disorder at follow-up (aHR=1.10, 95% CI=1.01–1.19) significantly increased dementia risk. Hispanic older adults with higher physical disorder at baseline (aHR=0.62, 95% CI=0.49–0.79) and follow-up (aHR=0.81, 95% CI=0.67–0.98) had a significantly decreased dementia risk. There were no significant associations for social cohesion. Discussion: Physical but not social neighborhood characteristics are associated with dementia risk. Future research is needed to understand protective mechanisms for dementia among Hispanic older adults in neighborhoods with high physical disorder.

TikTok has more than 1.5 billion users globally. Health and wellness content on the application increased by more than 600% in 2021. This systematic review seeks to summarize which fields within medicine have embraced researching health communication on the TikTok platform and the most common measures reported within this literature. Research questions include what categories of health topics on TikTok are investigated in the literature, trends in topics by year, and types of outcomes reported. Embase, CINAHL, Scopus, and Ovid MEDLINE databases were searched in March 2024. Eligible studies met four criteria: (1) investigated human health topics on TikTok; (2) conducted in the United States; (3) published in English; and (4) published in a peer-reviewed journal. Of the 101 included studies, 50.5% (N = 51) discussed non-surgical specialties, 9.9% (N = 10) discussed topics within surgery, and 11.9% (N = 12) discussed COVID-19. The number of papers referencing non-surgical topics spiked in 2023, and no increase was seen in the number of COVID-19 papers over time. Most papers reported a number of interactions, and papers about mental health were least likely to report accuracy. Our findings highlight several health topics with a wide breadth of research dedicated to them, such as dermatology and COVID-19, and highlight areas for future research, such as the intersection of cancer and TikTok. Findings may be influential in the fields of medicine and healthcare research by informing health policy and targeted prevention efforts. This review reveals the need for future policies that focus on the role and expectations of the healthcare worker in health communication on social media. Implications for clinical practice include the need for providers to consider an individual’s perception of health and illness, given the wide variety of information available on social media applications such as TikTok. This review was pre-registered on PROSPERO (CRD42024529182).