About Us
The Gateway Exposome Coordinating Center (GECC) advances research on the various environmental exposures over the life course — known as the “exposome” — that affect Alzheimer’s Disease (AD)
and AD-Related Dementias (ADRD) risk, resilience, and disparities. Currently, accessing and sharing exposome data among government agencies, researchers,
advocacy groups, and businesses is challenging. The GECC aims to address these issues by facilitating collaboration and consensus-building across disciplines,
and serving as a hub for collecting, organizing, and sharing exposome data for AD/ADRD research. We concentrate on six main domains: climate, physical environment,
social environment, policy environment, community services environment, and life experiences. By creating a collaborative platform across these focuses, we help
improve knowledge and understanding of AD/ADRD, which can drive policy changes and provide better data for future research. The GECC is funded by the National Institute on Aging.
Our interdisciplinary team is based at the Center for Economic and Social Research, the University of Southern California and partner institutions around the world.
Our Team
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORS
Jinkook Lee
University of Southern California
Sara Adar
University of Michigan School of Public Health
David Knapp
University of Southern California
OPERATIONS
Maya Fransz-Myers
Center Coordinator
University of Southern California
Ava Bindas
Communications Coordinator
University of Southern California
McKayla Wenner
Policy and Community Services Environment Domain Coordinator
University of Southern California
Eden Wetzel
Life Experiences Domain Coordinator
University of Southern California
Katherine Francois
Climate, Physical, and Social Environment Domain Coordinator
University of Michigan School of Public Health
DOMAIN LEADS
Gregory Wellenius
Climate Domain Lead
Boston University
Jeffrey Brook
Physical Environment Domain Co-Lead
University of Toronto
Michael Brauer
Physical Environment Domain Co-Lead
University of British Columbia
Margaret Hicken
Social Environment Domain Lead
University of Michigan
Mauricio Avendano
Policy Domain Lead
University of Lausanne
HwaJung Choi
Community Services Domain Co-Lead
University of Michigan
David Van Riper
Community Services Domain Co-Lead
University of Minnesota
Sarah Flood
Life Experiences Domain Co-Lead
University of Minnesota
Shrikanth Narayanan
Life Experiences Domain Co-Lead
University of Southern California
Emma Nichols
Methods Lead
University of Southern California
Bas Weerman
IT Director
University of Southern California
Lorna Thorpe
Dissemination Co-Lead
NYU Grossman School of Medicine
Marc Gourevitch
Dissemination Co-Lead
NYU Grossman School of Medicine
INVESTIGATIVE TEAM
Kayleigh Keller
Colorado State University
Erik Meijer
University of Southern California
Birgit G. Claus Henn
Boston University
Yao-Yi Chiang
University of Minnesota
Lucy Hutyra
Boston University
Emma Gause
Boston University
Chad Milando
Boston University
Kevin Lane
Boston University
Dany Doiron
McGill University
Clémence Kieny
University of Lausanne
Ben Spoer
NYU Grossman School of Medicine
Our Aims
- Identify research priorities via consensus-building among a broad range of stakeholders
- Develop guidance for measuring, harmonizing, and using exposome data
- Create novel exposome measures and data
- Disseminate open-access resources and products to the broader research community
Our Approach
To achieve these aims and advance life-course research on the AD/ADRD exposome, the GECC serves as a centralized hub for accessing,
harmonizing, linking, and sharing exposome data for AD/ADRD researchers across disciplines, with a focus on six key, interconnected domains:
Across these domains, the GECC will use a consensus-building process to identify and set priorities, reach agreement,
and establish guidance on exposome measures. Through cross-disciplinary communication and the wide dissemination of
resources, the GECC will provide unique opportunities for understanding how exposures interact to influence AD/ADRD
outcomes.
Although each domain has unique goals and outputs, all domains advance AD/ADRD exposome research in their fields by
inclusively and transparently establishing consensus on high priority research topics, developing standards for data
collection, and carrying out novel data collection for key exposome measures.
To identify potential priority areas for the center, the GECC will host a series of virtual town halls that include
participants with a range of experiences and expertise pertaining to AD/ADRD and the exposome. This includes gaining
valuable insights from academia and beyond, including but not limited to government and policymakers, industry
professionals, advocacy groups, and non-governmental organizations. From the discussions held in these gatherings,
the GECC will establish expert panels from across the research community that will meet virtually leading up to an
in-person, GECC-wide workshop where the core team, domain leads, and experts will stake out both short- and long-term
priorities for exposome measure curation and guidance through a consensus-building process.
Advancements in each domain will drive ongoing cooperative efforts. Domain experts and the core teams will continue to
meet regularly to discuss progress towards these goals and share their findings. The GECC will host additional town halls,
workshops, and expert panels to publicize and circulate new domain-specific knowledge, improved measures, and enhanced
policies for exposome data collection and sharing.
Given the diversity of environmental exposures over the life course, cross-disciplinary collaboration and expertise is critical. The GECC focuses on six key, interconnected domains: climate, physical environment, social environment, policy environment, community services environment, and life experiences, as well as two core teams dedicated to methodological issues and dissemination.
Climate
The climate domain considers the impacts of a wide range of relevant hazards on healthy aging, including rising outdoor temperatures and risks posed by smoke from wildfires, flooding, episodes of extreme heat, and other extreme weather events. This is an important area of focus since the climate is rapidly changing and weather events have been associated with higher rates of death and healthcare utilization among the general population, but especially those with dementia. Older adults with poorer cognition are particularly vulnerable to extreme weather events and stressors since they are often less mobile, are on a fixed income, may be taking medications that interfere with thermoregulation, and have chronic diseases. Climate hazards can vary dramatically across individuals for reasons including age, occupation, and living conditions. Therefore, activities focused on climate change mitigation, adaptation, and resilience can profoundly impact the health of people with cognitive declines and dementia.
The Climate domain is led by Dr. Gregory Wellenius (Boston University).
Physical Environment
The natural and built environment where we live, work, exercise, and socialize can have important influences on health. Some features of the physical environment can be harmful to health like air pollution and noise. Yet, other aspects like visibility of trees and lakes or access to transportation, parks, benches, restrooms, and safe communities can improve health. Since much of the physical environment can be modified, this is a critical area of importance to reduce the risks of dementia or improve the well-being of those with dementia.
The Physical Environment domain is co-led by Dr. Jeffrey Brook (University of Toronto) and Dr. Michael Brauer (University of British Columbia).
Social Environment
The social environment includes a person's workplace, neighborhood, society, and groups to which they belong. It can be characterized by how people relate to each other and the structures of the community. Features of social processes include things like social connections, support networks, and trust among people. Structural features refer to aspects of a place like racial segregation of where people live, housing affordability, and the overall wealth of a neighborhood. Many of these factors are linked to health conditions associated with dementia like hypertension and cardiovascular diseases, but more research is needed to understand how they affect brain health.
The Social Environment domain is led by Dr. Maggie Hicken (University of Michigan).
Policy Environment
The policy domain covers a broad scope of government policies that influence key determinants of AD/ADRD outcomes throughout life. This may include public health policies targeting dementia prevention (e.g., tobacco and alcohol control policies, nutritional labelling and food policies, urban design and walkability policies); health and long-term care policies (e.g., home-based care programs, institutional long-term care, caregiving support policies, end-of-life and palliative care policies); physical environmental policy (e.g., air quality and pollution control, noise pollution reduction, access to green spaces), and social policies (e.g., education policy, employment and workplace policies, social inclusion policies, income security and protection). Given this wide range of influential policies, variations across jurisdictions and time periods serve as natural experiments, allowing researchers to study how different policies affect AD/ADRD risk factors, and ultimately informing more targeted and effective interventions. To make progress in this domain, the GECC focuses on three main aims: reaching consensus on key policies affecting AD/ADRD outcomes, developing standardized methods for policy data collection, and creating robust analytical approaches to examine policy variations across temporal and spatial dimensions.
The Policy Environment domain is led by Prof. Mauricio Avendano (University of Lausanne).
Life Experiences
The life experiences domain explores how a range of experiences – from well-studied categories like education and caregiving, to less-studied aspects such as migration, stress and day-to-day experiences – shape health and well-being across the lifespan and relate to AD/ADRD outcomes. Primarily focused on individual and family level experiences, this domain employs novel approaches to understanding these occurrences across space and time. For example, time-related research in this domain examines how the cumulative effects of life experiences differ from isolated risk factors, takes into account how certain experiences have different impacts over time, and considers how the duration of an important life experience or when it occurs in the life course changes its import. This domain also intersects with the social environment, policy landscape, and community services domains to provide a holistic understanding of how various life experiences influence health and wellbeing as individuals and populations age.
The Life Experiences domain is co-led by Dr. Sarah Flood (University of Minnesota) and Dr. Shrikanth Narayanan (University of Southern California).
Methods
The methods core tackles cross-domain methodological challenges focused on measuring exposures and their associations with AD/ADRD outcomes.
Topics of interest to the methods group include methods and approaches for summarizing and analyzing high-dimensional and complex exposome data,
including index construction methods, the application of mixture methods to jointly model combinations of exposures, and the use of machine
learning methods to capture complex interplay between different exposome components. The group will also tackle challenges related to consideration
of life course data on exposures from birth and early childhood to late life, developing and discussing common approaches to understand and evaluate
sensitive periods and cumulative exposures across time. Additionally, the methods core will consider topics focused on minimizing bias in causal
analyses of the exposome and AD/ADRD outcomes, including the incorporation and consideration of measurement error, selection bias in studies of
older adults, and evidence triangulation and synthesis. By tackling high-priority challenges relevant to multiple domains, the methods core will
provide crucial insights to guide measure construction and subsequent analytic projects across the coordinating center.
The methods core is led by Dr. Emma Nichols (University of Southern California).
Dissemination
The dissemination team leverages and expands an existing network of outreach partners to distribute GECC-developed resources to a diverse array of AD/ADRD stakeholders. Collaborating with different domains, the team will produce, publish, and publicize materials like research briefs, infographics, and lay summaries of GECC activities. These resources will be crafted for clarity and accessibility, catering to the needs of both policymakers and researchers in adjacent disciplines. The dissemination core is co-led by Dr. Lorna Thorpe (NYU Grossman School of Medicine) and Dr. Marc Gourevitch (NYU Grossman School of Medicine).
We Want to Hear from You!
The GECC invites you to share your experiences and insights on aging and dementia at one of our virtual town halls.
We hope to get input from a wide range of partners including, but not limited to, academics, government representatives, industry, and community members.
Hearing a wide range of perspectives is crucial to setting an agenda for better scientific studies and policies related to brain health. We want to ensure that we are properly prioritizing the topics that most urgently need attention.
Register here for an upcoming town hall!
How Will the Town Halls Work?
The town halls are organized to allow participants the opportunity to discuss what is most important to them. Hosted virtually on Zoom, participants begin by suggesting topics and potential priority measures that may influence our communities’ risk of, resilience to, and disparities in Alzheimer’s and dementia. Breakout sessions will form around these topics for participants to have more focused discussions and create collaborative notes that will ultimately help other participants and the GECC shape an agenda for better scientific research and policies related to brain health.
Town halls will be held from October to December 2024, with two sessions each month to accommodate participants in different time zones. Participants need only attend one session but are welcome to attend multiple. The dates and times will be as follows:
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Wednesday, Oct 9th
- (Session 1) 9-10:30am US Eastern Time / 3-4:30pm Central European Time
- (Session 2) 2-3:30pm US Eastern Time / 11-12:30pm US Pacific Time
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Monday, Nov 4th
- (Session 1) 9-10:30am US Eastern Time / 3-4:30pm Central European Time
- (Session 2) 2-3:30pm US Eastern Time / 11-12:30pm US Pacific Time
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Tuesday, Dec 10th
- (Session 1) 9-10:30am US Eastern Time / 3-4:30pm Central European Time
- (Session 2) 2-3:30pm US Eastern Time / 11-12:30pm US Pacific Time
Sign up today!
To contact us, email us at: contact@gatewayexposome.org
The social environment includes a person's workplace, neighborhood, society, and groups to which they belong. It can be characterized by how people relate to each other and the structures of the community. Features of social processes include things like social connections, support networks, and trust among people. Structural features refer to aspects of a place like racial segregation of where people live, housing affordability, and the overall wealth of a neighborhood. Many of these factors are linked to health conditions associated with dementia like hypertension and cardiovascular diseases, but more research is needed to understand how they affect brain health. The Social Environment domain is led by Dr. Maggie Hicken (University of Michigan).