Stress and Resilience in the VIP

Asian Americans are the fastest growing racial minority group in the U.S and yet there is a dearth of research on their cognitive aging and risks for Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD). This is especially true for Vietnamese Americans, the 4th largest Asian American group in the U.S. Vietnamese Americans suffer disproportionately from early life adversity and trauma, depression,

stress, and low socioeconomic status (SES), all of which may increase risk for cognitive impairment and development of dementia. The specific sociocultural context of this group (i.e., high exposure to trauma, stress, diverse acculturation and immigration patterns) provides a unique opportunity to examine how early life factors and sociocultural diversity impact cognitive outcomes. In this supplement

application, Stress and Resilience in the VIP (parent grant: Vietnamese Insights into Cognitive Aging Program (VIP), R01AG067541), we will build on this unprecedented cohort study by collecting additional and innovative data. The overall goal of the parent grant is to obtain preliminary estimates of

mild cognitive impairment and dementia in the community and identify ADRD risk and resilience factors in this understudied group. For this supplement, we propose the following: Aim 1: Obtain measures of stress and resilience in VIP participants at their Time 2 visit. We will add two additional measures

not yet captured in the grant but are important within the context of cognitive aging for Vietnamese Americans– perceived stress and resilience, and hs-CRP will be added to the blood draw (N = 540). Aim 2. Examine the associations between stress, trauma, and adversity. We hypothesize that those with increased levels of perceived stress and hs-CRP at Time 2 will have reported higher levels

of trauma and adversity at the Time 1 visit. Aim 3. Examine the associations between new measures and cognition. We hypothesize that those with elevated levels of perceived stress and hs- CRP will have lower cross-sectional cognition scores, and this relationship will be attenuated by higher resilience scores. This proposal contributes new research to an unmatched longitudinal study whose

findings will lead to a better understanding of cognitive aging and mechanisms of disease in an understudied group but also have broader implications for advancing our knowledge of the sociocultural and early life contributions to cognitive aging in other populations.