Featured EXITO Researcher!
Raina Croff, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Neurology at the National Institution of Aging Layton Aging and Alzheimer's Disease Center at Oregon Health & Science University. Her work focuses on creating culturally celebratory approaches to physical activity, social engagement, and reminiscence therapy for healthier aging, particularly amidst the trauma of gentrification and its implications for older Black adults' cognitive health and social connectedness. Dr. Croff has been an EXITO mentor extraordinaire over the past several years leading a Research Learning Community. She received her Ph.D. in Anthropology from Yale University and began her career as an archaeological anthropologist of the African Diaspora, leading excavation research in Senegal where she examined the intersection of human behavior, inequality, and material culture. This early work led her to focus on medical anthropology and how culture and society influence and are influenced by health, disease, and health beliefs. In more recent years, Dr. Croff has applied her anthropological lens to American Indian/Alaska Native traditional approaches to substance use disorder treatment, and currently, to cognitive health, cultural neuroscience, and neuroanthropology.
Dr. Croff’s RLC is The Sharing History through Active Reminiscence and Photo-imagery (SHARP) and aims to increase social engagement and physical exercise in African Americans aged 55 and over in Portland, Oregon. Participants walk one-mile routes three times a week in Portland's historically Black neighborhoods and view historic neighborhood images to prompt conversation about their experiences living and working in the area from the 1940s to 2010. Narratives are digitally recorded and used to engage the wider African American community in learning sessions about the importance of cognitive health and memory health as we age. This work enhances understanding of building historical awareness and cultural relevance to minority health interventions and how to integrate neighborhood setting and social engagement into cognitive health interventions for older populations.