Brainstorming Ways of Improving Representation Across Alzheimer Disease Clinical Research: Sid O’Bryant, PhD

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“One of the concepts that people miss is that access and availability are not the same thing. Just because a clinic is available does not mean that people have access to it. As difficult as it is for our scientific and medical community to hear, we are the barriers."

The Health & Aging Brain Study–Health Disparities (HABS-HD), led by Sid O’Bryant, PhD, is a large-scale study examining Alzheimer disease (AD) across the 3 largest racial and ethnic groups in the United States, including African American, Hispanic, and non-Hispanic White populations. The study aims to identify life-course factors such as biological, sociocultural, environmental, and behavioral, that contribute to AD risk later in life, with the long-term goal of informing population-specific precision-medicine approaches for prevention and treatment.

Besides the HABS-HD study, Bryant’s research also includes the development and application of blood-based biomarkers to support precision-medicine strategies for diagnosing and treating neurodegenerative conditions such as AD. Bryant, who also serves as the executive director of the Institute for Translational Research at UNT Health, recently presented a keynote presentation on improving participation of representative populations in AD studies at the 18th Clinical Trials on Alzheimer’s Disease (CTAD) Conference, held December 1-4, 2025, in San Diego, California.²

At the conference, Bryant spoke with NeurologyLive^® to highlight that increasing representation in AD clinical trials requires more than expanding availability. In the interview, he emphasized that individuals from underrepresented groups disproportionately receive care in primary care settings rather than specialty clinics. Additionally, Bryant stressed the importance of educating primary care clinicians, nurses, social workers, and community members to correct misconceptions about memory loss and reduce cultural stigmas associated with dementia. By building authentic community relationships, he argued that the field can create more equitable pathways to diagnostics, therapies, and research involvement.

Click here to view more coverage of CTAD 2025.

REFERENCES
1. O’Bryant S. Enhancing Participation of Representative Populations in Alzheimer Disease Clinical Trials. Presented at: CTAD 2025; December 1-4; San Diego, CA. Keynote 1.