{"doi":"10.1016/j.ssmph.2024.101655","title":"Pathways explaining racial/ethnic and socio-economic disparities in brain white matter integrity outcomes in the UK Biobank study","abstract":"Pathways explaining racial/ethnic and socio-economic status (SES) disparities in white matter integrity (WMI) reflecting brain health, remain underexplored, particularly in the UK population. We examined racial/ethnic and SES disparities in diffusion tensor brain magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI) markers, namely global and tract-specific mean fractional anisotropy (FA), and tested total, direct and indirect effects through lifestyle, health-related and cognition factors using a structural equations modeling approach among 36,184 UK Biobank participants aged 40–70 y at baseline assessment (47% men). Multiple linear regression models were conducted, testing independent associations of race/ethnicity, socio-economic and other downstream factors in relation to global mean FA, while stratifying by Alzheimer’s Disease polygenic Risk Score (AD PRS) tertiles. Race (Non-White vs. White) and lower SES predicted poorer WMI (i.e. lower global mean FA) at follow-up, with racial/ethnic disparities in FAmean involving multiple pathways and SES playing a central role in those pathways. Mediational patterns differed across tract-specific FA outcomes, with SES-FAmean total effect being partially mediated (41% of total effect = indirect effect). Furthermore, the association of poor cognition with FAmean was markedly stronger in the two uppermost AD PRS tertiles compared to the lower tertile (T2 and T3: β±SE: −0.0009 ± 0.0001 vs. T1: β±SE: −0.0005 ± 0.0001, P < 0.001), independently of potentially confounding factors. Race and lower SES were generally important determinants of adverse WMI outcomes, with partial mediation of socio-economic disparities in global mean FA through lifestyle, health-related and cognition factors. The association of poor cognition with lower global mean FA was stronger at higher AD polygenic risk.","journal":"SSM - Population Health","year":2024,"id":457372,"datarank":0.29188652235829704,"base_score":1.9459101490553132,"endowment":1.9459101490553132,"self_citation_contribution":0.29188652235829704,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.29188652235829704,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":6,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9298,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":247987,"name":"May A. Beydoun","orcid":"0000-0002-1050-4523","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":247988,"name":"Hind A. Beydoun","orcid":"0000-0002-9704-328X","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":902645,"name":"Michael F. Georgescu","orcid":"0000-0002-2619-2675","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":879762,"name":"Yi‐Han Hu","orcid":"0000-0003-0882-6563","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":345471,"name":"Nicole Noren Hooten","orcid":"0000-0002-1683-3838","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":48808,"name":"Srikanta Banerjee","orcid":"0000-0002-6872-4983","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":17636,"name":"Lenore J. Launer","orcid":"0000-0002-3238-7612","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":108724,"name":"Michele K. Evans","orcid":"0000-0002-8546-2831","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":22038,"name":"Alan B. Zonderman","orcid":"0000-0002-6523-4778","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":48759,"name":"Jordan Weiss","orcid":"0000-0002-0392-3535","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":72,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:03:37.136946Z","pmid":"38562403","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}