Dementia Matters

A graduate student from the University of Wisconsin–Madison is pushing for the disaggregation of data in research to better understand how individuals from different ethnic subgroups are represented as research participants and as researchers. Kao Lee Yang began writing and discussing the topic after the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Gilliam Fellowship for Advanced Study rejected her application for not meeting their racial and ethnic underrepresentation criteria, despite often being the only Hmong American scientist in many research spaces. Yang joins the podcast to discuss her opinion piece for STAT News, the problems with using aggregated data, and how the push to study individual ethnic groups could improve Alzheimer’s disease research. Guest: Kao Lee Yang, MPA/PhD candidate in the Neuroscience and Public Policy Program and Bendlin Laboratory, University of Wisconsin–Madison Episode Topics 6:12 Why is combining all Asian people into one category detrimental? What is improved when this population is br