NG00093 – WHICAP GWAS (CHOP)

The Washington Heights-Inwood Community Aging Project (WHICAP) is a community-based longitudinal study of aging and dementia among elderly, urban-dwelling residents. Beginning enrolment in 1989, WHICAP has followed more than 5,900 residents over 65 years of age, including white, African American, and Hispanic participants. Detailed clinical assessments were performed at approximately 24-month intervals over the 7 years of the initial study. All interviews were conducted in either English or Spanish. The choice of language was decided by the subject in order to ensure the best performance, and the majority of assessments were performed in the subject’s home, which included medical, neurological, and neuropsychological evaluations. Results of the neurological, psychiatric and neuropsychological assessments were reviewed in a consensus conference comprised of neurologists, psychiatrists, and neuropsychologists. Based on this review all participants were assigned to one of three categories: dementia, cognitive impairment or normal cognitive function. The sample set available in the ADGC for genetic analyses included 73 Alzheimer’s disease cases and 560 subjects with normal cognitive function.

This SNP array dataset, WHICAP, was used by the Alzheimer’s Disease Genetics Consortium (ADGC) to identify genes associated with an increased risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. Provided here are the PLINK genotype files that have undergone ADGC quality control procedures, covariates formatted by ADGC to be used with the genotype data, and imputation files (.bgen format) generated using the TOPMED-r2 reference panel.