Carmen I. Carrión, PsyD has joined the Outreach and Engagement (ORE) Core of the Yale Alzheimer's Disease Research Center (ADRC) as an associate core leader, joining Isis Burgos-Chapman, MD. Dr. Carrión is an assistant professor and a bilingual (Spanish) neuropsychologist in the Department of Neurology. Dr. Carrión has more than ten years of experience serving diverse communities throughout the U.S., with a research focus on health disparities in Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. In collaboration with Yale’s Clinical and Outreach Cores, Dr. Carrión will work with the greater New Haven community to discuss how the findings from this research could aid in better understanding health disparities, and over time, influence policies that lead to improvements in our community.
Dr. Carrión will lead the Yale site of the Neighborhoods Study, a federally funded project led by Amy Kind, MD, PhD and Barbara Bendlin, PhD from the University of Wisconsin (Grant: 5R01MD10243). The Neighborhoods Study is a multisite collaboration, including 22 ADRCs, which seeks to understand why differences in cognitive and brain health outcomes occur across different communities. Prior studies indicate that these differences are influenced both by factors within the individual (e.g., family history of dementia) and society (e.g. historical injustice). Our study will focus on societal-level factors to determine whether larger and earlier exposures to neighborhood disadvantage lead to greater difficulties in thinking (cognition), a faster rate of cognitive decline, and greater structural brain changes. For more information about this study, you can reach out to site investigator Carmen I. Carrión, PsyD at carmen.carrion@yale.edu.