Minority communities will be hit hardest by soaring rates of Alzheimer’s disease

It’s time to stop side-stepping the obvious: In addition to affecting the lives of virtually all Americans in the coming years, Alzheimer’s disease will devastate communities of color. We must act with urgency and coordinated force today to prevent that from happening.

According to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Alzheimer’s deaths increased by 55 percent among all Americans between 1999 and 2014. But they increased 99 percent for African-Americans and 107 percent for Latinos. While striking, that’s likely to be an underestimate because some independent studies have found that Alzheimer’s deaths are underreported on death certificates by approximately six times because death is often attributed to more immediate causes, like pneumonia.

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(credit: BILL ROSS/AP)