New study shows Southern California is hot zone for Alzheimer’s disease

Southern California is a hot zone for Alzheimer’s disease, with four local counties already reporting some of the nation’s highest numbers of people diagnosed with the disease and demographic factors suggesting a flood of new patients is coming in future decades, according to a report released Monday, July 17, by the Alzheimer’s Association.

Overall, Los Angeles and Orange counties both rank in the nation’s top 10 based on the sheer number of people with Alzheimer’s and related dementias. That’s to be expected; both counties also are among the nation’s 10 biggest by population.

In all, the report found that 326,300 people in the four-county region that includes Riverside and San Bernardino counties have Alzheimer’s, an incurable, progressive disease that affects cognition and is one of the nation’s leading causes of death. The current Alzheimer’s headcount includes 190,300 people in Los Angeles County, 57,800 in Orange County, 46,000 in Riverside County and 32,200 in San Bernardino County.

But the study also found that the prevalence of Alzheimer’s – a rate based on the percentage of people age 65 and older who are diagnosed with the disease – is far higher than the national average in all four counties, with Los Angeles County at 13.2%, Orange at 11.6%, and both Riverside and San Bernardino counties at 12%. (Nationally, about 10.7% of people 65 or older are diagnosed with the disease.)

Some aging experts said Monday that the report backs what they’ve suspected for some time: that the region, and the state, are likely to suffer disproportionately from the health, economic and social stresses associated with Alzheimer’s.

Still, the first-ever county-level headcount of current Alzheimer’s patients, plus demographics that suggest what the numbers will be in the future, could affect billions of dollars in spending aimed at Alzheimer’s prevention as well as money spent on treatment for Alzheimer’s patients and the assistance for people who care for them.

“The numbers in this report are not a surprise,” said Susan DeMarois, director of the California Department on Aging. “Our governor campaigned on this issue 4 1/2 years ago, and we’ve created a number of programs aimed at various areas related to Alzheimer’s.”

DeMarois noted that in 2019 the state convened the Alzheimer’s Preparedness Task Force, which over the years has offered several suggestions that have led to new state programs. These range from new training programs for family members and others who help care for Alzheimer’s patients to the expansion of the Healthy Brain Initiative (which collects Alzheimer’s-related data in specific communities) and expanded or new Alzheimer’s Research Centers at state universities and private schools such as USC and Stanford.

But Alzheimer’s is an age-related disease, with the likelihood of diagnoses rising in each decade of life. And demographic trends suggest California – and, specifically, the four-county Southern California region – will see the number of people 55 and older nearly double over the next three decades.

Because of that, DeMarois and others suggested government and even scientific efforts to help people with Alzheimer’s will need to be supplemented by a general awareness that the disease is likely to affect nearly every family and touch nearly every facet of society.

“There needs to be a full-court press that this is a housing issue, and a workforce issue and an issue for caregivers,” DeMarois said.

Others echoed that.

“As our state continues to age, people need to be aware of what is coming,” said Jared Giarrusso-Khlok, California government affairs director for the Alzheimer’s Association.

Giarrusso-Khlok added that’s particularly true for California lawmakers, who are already wrestling with Alzheimer’s-related budget questions in a year when the budget is shrinking. The Alzheimer’s Association has pegged the number of Americans with Alzheimer’s at 6.7 million and projected it could grow to about 13 million by 2050. As that happens nationally and in California, Giarrusso-Khlok and others noted, Alzheimer’s will become a bigger issue in all social spending.’

“The question is: Are (legislators) going to continue to prioritize this issue?” Giarrusso-Khlok said. “We’re going to need consistent, established programs, not one-offs that go away.”

Older lawmakers who have personal experience with Alzheimer’s tend to understand how the disease can be detrimental for the physical and emotional health for caregivers and drain family finances, he said. Younger lawmakers, he added, “probably will understand it better pretty soon.”

The new report offers some data that backs that up.

Though California is generally younger than most other states, with 15.2% of the overall population age 65 or older (a percentage that ranks 45th out of 50 states), its prevalence for Alzheimer’s, overall, is 12%, or seventh highest in the country.

That’s true for a couple of demographic reasons, according to the report. Though California’s total 65-plus population is comparatively smaller than most states, it does include a pronounced number of people 85 or older, a factor that significantly boosts the state’s current Alzheimer’s rate.

Also two groups, Black Americans and Hispanic Americans, tend to be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at higher rates than White Americans and most Asian Americans, according to the report. Hispanics account for about 39% of all Californians and are the state’s largest ethnic group. That demographic fact, according to the report, will supercharge our Alzheimer’s rate in the future.

For now, California ranks first in total number of people diagnosed with Alzheimer’s (nearly 720,000), followed by Florida, Texas, New York and Pennsylvania.