The Future of Brain Health Care: Why Culturally Sensitive Approaches Are Non-Negotiable

If you want to see where culturally sensitive brain health care is heading, it is not just in the latest drug trials or new surgical techniques. You have to look closer — at culture.

I know this because 25 years of lived experience have taught me that disease does not discriminate, but access to care, getting the right diagnosis, and even the

es often do. And it usually follows cultural lines.

Over the past 2 months, I have participated in no four or five Parkinson’s events with people from Black, Brown, and Afro-Latino communities. One message keeps coming up. When they hear that Parkinson’s is the fastest-growing neurological condition globally and that nearly 90,000 people in the U.S. are diagnosed each year (Parkinson’s Foundation, 2024), the first thing they ask is: what can be done about this?

My belief is simple. Even if we cannot prevent everything, we can at least create safe spaces where people feel seen and supported through treatment.

Culture Is Not a Variable — It Is the Context

Culture is not just a detail to pay attention to. It is the framework people live by. It shapes how they understand their health, how they find care, and whether they feel truly heard.

For me, cultural blind spots meant I missed years of treatment that could have made a real difference. And this is not just my story. Across the country, these blind spots are holding back real progress in brain health. It is not a small gap — it is a wide divide. Closing it will take more than new studies. It is going to take real action.

The Cost of Ignoring Culture Is Real

Here is what we are seeing:

• Black Americans are 1.5 times more likely to develop Alzheimer's but are less likely to be diagnosed early.

• Hispanic communities face higher stroke rates but receive fewer life-saving treatments.

• Mental health stigma in many Asian and Indigenous communities prevents people from speaking up about early neurological symptoms.

These are not just statistics. They represent real people — real lives where better care could have made a difference but did not.

What a Better Future Looks Like

Because of what I have been through, I created a recovery model built around four main ideas:

• Nutrition that respects and works with cultural food traditions, not against them.

• Physical fitness that fits all body types, abilities, and traditions.

• Mental health support that fits within the values and beliefs of different communities.

• Community programs like “Mommy Villages” that help break isolation and build real support networks.

This is not innovation just for the sake of it. I am living proof it works. It is about survival and staying grounded in real life.

Through programs like NeuroSeeds — a K-12 brain health literacy initiative — and HBCU Fireside Chats — an early detection and awareness platform — The Thriving Brain & Development Project Inc. is showing that culturally centered care is not just more compassionate. It leads to better outcomes.

If You Are a Healthcare Leader, Here’s What You Should Be Thinking About

If you are serious about the future of brain health care, it is time to:

• Broaden your view of diagnosis. Textbooks can guide you, but real understanding comes from what you see, hear, and learn from your patients.

• Make cultural competency and humility training a must, not just an option.

• Push for research that reflects the people in your community.

• Bring real community voices into how programs are designed, not just how they are marketed.

• Treat lived experience as clinical data.

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The next big breakthrough in brain health care will not only come from a lab. It will come from clinics that treat community.

Reimagine Your Role

Innovation in healthcare today is not just about doing more. It is about doing what is right. And that starts with seeing patients fully — culture and all.

Now is the time to move from being aware of culture to building it into how care is delivered.

The future of brain health depends on it.