Equity Award to Support Cognitive Testing for Chinese-Speaking Population
On February 1, the Global Brain Health Institute (GBHI) and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) School of Medicine announced Boon Lead Tee, Assistant Professor of Neurology at UCSF and Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health, as a winner of the 2021 GBHI Equity Award from UCSF.
Sponsored by GBHI, the Equity Award aims to support a faculty member’s research or programming related to population health and/or health equity. In addition to award funds of 20,000 USD, Boon Lead will join a group of scholars across UCSF to share experiences and achievement in this space.
Her project, "Population-specific validation of neuropsychological tests for Chinese American individuals," will focus on examining the neuropsychological and neuroanatomical interpretations of the cognitive tests adopted for the Chinese American population at the UCSF Memory and Aging Center. Additionally, she will investigate continuous quantitative methods to characterize the multilingual and multi-cultural features of this population.
“I am honored and humbled to receive this award for health equity,” said Boon Lead. “I hope this project helps to advance more precise clinical diagnosis and care for the Chinese American population.”
Boon Lead is a neurologist who specializes in various dementia syndromes, particularly primary progressive aphasia. She is developing linguistically and culturally adapted cognitive assessment tools for Chinese populations that suffer from neurodegenerative diseases and studying their neural basis variability.
The award is coordinated with the Population Health and Health Equity Scholars Award presented by UCSF’s Vice Dean for Population Health and Health Equity, Kristen Bibbins-Domingo, and the Dean of the School of Medicine, Talmadge King. It is representative of GBHI’s continued commitment to equity.
Read more about the Population Health and Health Equity Scholar Awards.
GBHI Members Mentioned
Boon Lead Tee, MD, MS
Neurologist