Abstract
Given the frequent attention and focus on Alzheimer's disease by the mass media over the recent decades, it is assumed that the American public is fairly well-informed and knowledgeable about the disease. However, what the public actually knows about Alzheimer's disease and the characteristics of those persons most informed have generally remained a mystery as only afew aspects of disease awareness have been sporadically measured. Thus, this study explicitly explores the level of overall public knowledge about Alzheimer's disease measured through survey research based on a nationally representative sample of 1498 persons age 45 and over. The Alzheimer's Disease Awareness Test (ADAT) was developed and utilized with 17 items dealing with disease etiology, symptoms, and misconceptions. While almost everyone (91 percent) has heard of AD, there are wide gaps in disease knowledge among a significant portion of the public. Two tiers of knowledge arefound to exist indicating the different types of information known:
The Easy/General Knowledge Tier is comprised of eight items tapping disease aspects that are less technical in nature, require little conceptual sophistication and tend to be facts widely disseminated by the mass media; and
The Hard/Specific Knowledge Tier is comprised of nine items requiring more complex understanding and deal with more scientific disease aspects.
Most persons score moderately high on the Easy/General Index while few do well on the Hard/Specific Index. Correlates of a high level of knowledge on both tiers are education, age, knowing someone with AD as well as the closeness and relationship of the effected person, and having parents who are living
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