Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

There is a striking imbalance between the participation of older women versus that of older men in brain health research. This biased representation, rooted in gender, raises concerns about health equity, discrimination, and how applicable are neuroscience findings for the larger aging population. We wanted to better understand what encouraged and what hindered older women and men's willingness to participate in brain health research. We conducted one-on-one interviews using a method called "fuzzy cognitive mapping" with 12 women and 12 men. Someone's personal traits, the type of interaction they have with the researcher, logistic considerations, and the specific methods of the research were influential for both older women and men's decision to participate in the study. Having personal experiences related to the research was more influential exclusively for older women, whereas older men were more willing to engage in research that benefited the general population. Our findings help shape future recruitment strategies to make brain health research samples more equitable, inclusive, and generalizable.