Kala M. Mehta is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Geriatrics and an Affiliate of the Center for Aging in Diverse Communities at UCSF.

Dr. Mehta completed her undergraduate work in Molecular and Cell Biology, with an emphasis in Neurobiology at the University of California, Berkeley in 1993 and completed her doctoral training in Clinical Epidemiology at the Erasmus University Medical School in the Netherlands. She completed two post-doctoral fellowships, one at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and another at the Division of Geriatrics, UCSF.

Dr. Mehta joined the UCSF faculty in September 2003. Her research has focused on determinants of race/ethnic differences and cognitive decline/dementia. 

Research Activities

Dementia and cognitive decline are important, prevalent, and debilitating conditions for older adults in the United States. Dr. Mehta studies have shown that the burden of dementia and cognitive decline may be greater for older adults who are of minority race/ethnicity. Minority older adults experience greater cognitive declines. Once they have been diagnosed with dementia, they have lower rates of acetylcholinesterase inhibitor use. At the same time, minority patients with Alzheimer's disease live longer, on average than White patients. For this reason, Dr. Mehta is very committed and passionate about reducing health disparities in cognitive decline/dementia for minority older adults. Dr. Mehta examines traditional risk factors more closely, to determine whether these risk factors can identify ways to reduce health disparities.