Costa among researchers seeking to improve early identification of dementia
Andrew Costa is among the McMaster researchers awarded $1 million by the Public Health Agency of Canada to determine how many Canadians live with undiagnosed dementia and improve understanding around risk factors related to the disease.
The Enhanced Dementia Surveillance program will collect data on dementia progression, socio-demographic and risk factors for the disease, and its effect on caregivers and others. It is part of the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA), a national platform for research on aging led by McMaster researcher Parminder Rain.
Research will be co-led by Costa, who is the Schlegel Research Chair in Clinical Epidemiology and Aging, and Lauren Griffith. Both are associate professors in McMaster’s Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence and Impact and associate scientific directors of the CLSA.
The work will focus on:
- establishing an estimate of undiagnosed dementia in Canada by validating dementia cases using CLSA data
- linking CLSA data with provincial health-care databases to assess undiagnosed dementia and confirm diagnosed cases
- conducting an analysis of known and emerging risk factors associated with dementia, and determining the feasibility of adding additional measures to enhance the CLSA as a dementia platform
