The Washington Heights-Hamilton Heights-Inwood Community Aging Project (WHICAP) is a community-based longitudinal study of aging and dementia among elderly, urban-dwelling residents. The project began enrolling patients in 1989 and has followed more than 5,900 residents over 65 years of age. The WHICAP study has enabled researchers to capture detailed information about the onset of dementia and how symptoms develop over time. It has yielded comprehensive data on the rates of, and risk factors for, Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias among African-Americans, Caribbean Hispanics, and Caucasians living in these Northern Manhattan communities. WHICAP investigators have identified genetic, environmental, and health-related risk factors of disease and predictors of disease progression by collecting longitudinal data on cognitive performance, emotional health, independence in daily activities, blood pressure, anthropometric measures, cardiovascular status, metabolic disorders, neurodegeneration, and selected biomarkers in this elderly, multi-ethnic cohort. Blood and imaging biomarkers for late-onset dementia, mild cognitive impairment, and cognitive decline have been studied to identify early indicators of risk that might serve as points of intervention to delay or prevent onset of dementia. A central finding is that the rates of disease and frequency of disease risk factors vary across ethnic groups. WHICAP is run by a multidisciplinary team at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, led by Dr. Richard Mayeux, and is supported by a grant (R01AG0372) from the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health. Text taken from the WHICAP Study page on May 31, 2023.

Richard P. Mayeux, MD, MSc

Nicole Schupf, Ph.D.

PO1AG07232, R01AG037212, RF1AG054023, UL1TR001873

Acknowledgment statement for any data distributed by NIAGADS:

Data for this study were prepared, archived, and distributed by the National Institute on Aging Alzheimer's Disease Data Storage Site (NIAGADS) at the University of Pennsylvania (U24-AG041689), funded by the National Institute on Aging.

For investigators using WHICAP data:

Data collection and sharing for this project was supported by the Washington Heights-Inwood Columbia Aging Project (WHICAP, PO1AG07232, R01AG037212, RF1AG054023) funded by the National Institute on Aging (NIA) and by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, National Institutes of Health, through Grant Number UL1TR001873. This manuscript has been reviewed by WHICAP investigators for scientific content and consistency of data interpretation with previous WHICAP Study publications. We acknowledge the WHICAP study participants and the WHICAP research and support staff for their contributions to this study.

Gu Y, Gutierrez J, Meier IB, Guzman VA, Manly JJ, Schupf N, Brickman AM, Mayeux R. Circulating inflammatory biomarkers are related to cerebrovascular disease in older adults. Neurol Neuroimmunol Neuroinflamm. 2018 Nov 14;6(1):e521. doi: 10.1212/NXI.0000000000000521. eCollection 2019 Jan. PubMed PMID: 30568999; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC6278856.

Gurland BJ, Wilder DE, Lantigua R, Stern Y, Chen J, Killeffer EH, Mayeux R. Rates of dementia in three ethnoracial groups. Int J Geriatr Psychiatry. 1999 Jun;14(6):481-93. PubMed PMID: 10398359.

Gutierrez J, Guzman V, Khasiyev F, Manly J, Schupf N, Andrews H, Mayeux R, Brickman AM. Brain arterial dilatation and the risk of Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimers Dement. 2019 May;15(5):666-674. doi: 10.1016/j.jalz.2018.12.018. Epub  2019 Mar 1. PubMed PMID: 30827874; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC6511479.

Lee JH, Cheng R, Schupf N, Manly J, Lantigua R, Stern Y, Tycko B, Rogaeva E, Wakutani Y, Farrer L, St George-Hyslop P, Mayeux R. The Association Between Genetic Variants in SORL1 and Alzheimer’s Disease in an Urban, Multiethnic, Community-Based Cohort. Arch Neurol. 2007 Apr; 64(4): 501–506. doi: 10.1001/archneur.64.4.501 PMCID: PMC2639214.

Lee S, Zhou X, Gao Y, Vardarajan B, Reyes-Dumeyer D, Rajan KB, Wilson RS, Evans DA, Besser LM, Kukull WA, Bennett DA, Brickman AM, Schupf N, Mayeux R, Barral S. Episodic memory performance in a multi-ethnic longitudinal study of 13,037 elderly. PLoS One. 2018 Nov 21;13(11):e0206803. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0206803. eCollection 2018. PubMed PMID: 30462667; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC6248922.

Mayeux R, Schupf N. Blood-based biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease: plasmaAβ40 and Aβ42, and genetic variants. Neurobiol Aging. 2011 Dec;32 Suppl 1:S10-9. Doi10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2011.09.004. Review. PubMed PMID: 22078169; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3233700.

Raghavan NS, Brickman AM, Andrews H, Manly JJ, Schupf N, Lantigua R, Wolock CJ, Kamalakaran S, Petrovski S, Tosto G, Vardarajan BN, Goldstein DB, Mayeux R; Alzheimer’s Disease Sequencing Project. Whole-exome sequencing in 20,197 persons for rare variants in Alzheimer’s disease. Ann Clin Transl Neurol. 2018 May 24;5(7):832-842. doi: 10.1002/acn3.582. eCollection 2018 Jul. Erratum in: Ann Clin Transl Neurol. 2019 Feb 25;6(2):416. PubMed PMID: 30009200; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC6043775.

Sariya S, Lee JH, Mayeux R, Vardarajan BN, Reyes-Dumeyer D, Manly JJ, Brickman AM, Lantigua R, Medrano M, Jimenez-Velazquez IZ, Tosto G. Rare Variants Imputation in Admixed Populations: Comparison Across Reference Panels and Bioinformatics Tools. Front Genet. 2019 Apr 3;10:239. doi: 10.3389/fgene.2019.00239. eCollection 2019. PubMed PMID: 31001313; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC6456789.

Tang MX, Cross P, Andrews H, Jacobs DM, Small S, Bell K, Merchant C, Lantigua R, Costa R, Stern Y, Mayeux R. Incidence of AD in African Americans, Caribbean Hispanics, and Caucasians in northern Manhattan. Neurology, 2001; 56(1): 49-56.

Tosto G, Vardarajan B, Sariya S, Brickman AM, Andrews H, Manly JJ, Schupf N, Reyes-Dumeyer D, Lantigua R, Bennett DA, De Jager PL, Mayeux R. Association of Variants in PINX1 and TREM2 With Late-Onset Alzheimer Disease. JAMA Neurol. 2019 May 6. doi: 10.1001/jamaneurol.2019.1066. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID:31058951; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC6503572.