At the 2026 Alter Dementia Summit and Aging Well Expo in Atlanta, more than 100 free cognitive screenings were offered to adults aged 60 and older as part of the 100 Minds Screening Project. Of the 106 people screened, over 68% said they had never had a memory screening or discussed brain health with a health care professional before that day.
The project was led by Alter Dementia, which works with faith-based organizations rooted in African American communities, and SageNavigator, an Atlanta nonprofit focused on older adults and people living with disabilities. Dementia Care Aware supplied the screening training for the teams involved. Participants received confidential screenings along with brain health planning information and referrals to services.
The reason the setting matters is spelled out by Dr. Fayron Epps, founder of Alter Dementia, who said the group chose the summit because "the trust was already in the room." Screening older adults where they already gather to worship and talk openly about dementia sidesteps a barrier that clinics often cannot: the reluctance to raise memory concerns with a system that many people do not feel understands the cultural weight of the conversation.
That gap has measurable consequences. African Americans experience dementia at nearly twice the rate of non-Hispanic white older adults and are 35% less likely to receive a timely formal diagnosis. A single-day screening event cannot close that gap on its own, but the finding that most participants had never discussed brain health with a clinician points to how much unmet demand may be sitting in community settings that traditional outreach has not reached.