Citation

Hayward, Mark D.; Farina, Mateo P.; Zhang, Yuan S.; Kim, Jung Ki; & Crimmins, Eileen M. (2021). The Importance of Improving Educational Attainment for Dementia Prevalence Trends from 2000-2014, among Older Non-Hispanic Black and White Americans. Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 75(9), 1870-1879. PMCID: PMC8557827

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: While a number of studies have documented a notable decline in age-standardized prevalence in dementia in the U.S. population, relatively little is known about how dementia has declined for specific age and race groups, and the importance of changing educational attainment on the downward trend. We assess 1) how the trends in dementia prevalence may have differed across age and race groups and 2) the role of changing educational attainment in understanding these trends.
METHOD: This paper estimates a series of logistic regression models using data from the Health and Retirement Study (2000-2014) to assess the relative annual decline in dementia prevalence and the importance of improving educational attainment for non-Hispanic Whites and non-Hispanic Blacks.
RESULTS: Consistent with other studies, we found significant declines in dementia for non-Hispanic Blacks and non-Hispanic Whites across this period. Nonetheless, these declines were not uniform across age and race groups. Non-Hispanic Blacks aged 65-74 had the steepest decline in this period. We also found that improved educational attainment in the population was fundamentally important in understanding declining dementia prevalence in the United States.
DISCUSSION: This study shows the importance of improvement in educational attainment in the early part of the 20 th century to understand the downward trend in dementia prevalence in the United States from 2000 to 2014.

URL

http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/geronb/gbab015

Reference Type

Journal Article

Year Published

2021

Journal Title

Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences

Author(s)

Hayward, Mark D.
Farina, Mateo P.
Zhang, Yuan S.
Kim, Jung Ki
Crimmins, Eileen M.

Article Type

Regular

PMCID

PMC8557827

Data Set/Study

Health and Retirement Study (HRS)

Continent/Country

United States of America

State

Nonspecific

Race/Ethnicity

Black
White

ORCiD

Zhang, Yuan - 0000-0002-1290-9305