Laboratory

Population Health

Project

Cognitive Functioning in Middle- and High-Income Countries

Mikko Myrskylä, Jo Mhairi Hale (MPIDR / University of St Andrews, United Kingdom), Shubhankar Sharma, Daniel Schneider, Angelo Lorenti, Peng Li, Pekka Martikainen; in Collaboration with Neil Kishor Mehta (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA)

Detailed Description

As people age, they often experience reduced levels of cognitive functioning. These declines can affect older adults’ quality of life and influence the nature of their interpersonal relationships. Reductions in cognition can also limit older people’s independence when it becomes more difficult for them to perform common activities, such as filling out paperwork or performing everyday calculations. Patterns of cognitive decline likely vary by individual characteristics, such as gender, educational attainment, and race/ethnicity. Given the variations in public health conditions, educational systems, and welfare and support systems for the elderly, these patterns are likely to differ across countries and over time.

In low- and middle-income countries, older adults tend to live with their adult children, and thus typically receive extended familial support. However, they must also contend with low levels of institutional support and weak economic conditions, which means that, on average, older people in these countries have lower education and worse health, and have generally experienced tougher socioeconomic conditions over their life course than their counterparts in high-income countries. These experiences may in turn affect the types and the rates of decline in cognitive function that these older individuals experience. In high-income countries, by contrast, a higher percentage of older adults live in institutions such as nursing homes or senior residences, which provide around-the-clock medical attention and allow for some social contact with other seniors. To disentangle these complicated pathways, we apply innovative methodological techniques and exploit data from multiple countries as well as datasets, including the English Longitudinal Study of Aging; the Study of Health, Aging, and Retirement in Europe; the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study; and the US Health and Retirement Study.

Publications

Hale, J. M.; Lorenti, A.; Argeseanu Cunningham, S.:

Disentangling social isolation, loneliness, and later-life cognitive function for older adults in the United States: evidence from causal inference modeling

Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences 81:3, 1–12. (2026)

Myrskylä, M.; Hale, J. M.; Schneider, D. C.; Mehta, N. K.:

Trends in memory function and memory impairment among older adults in the United States and Europe, 1996-2018

Journals of Gerontology, Series A: Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences 79:S1, S11–S21. (2024)

Sharma, S.; Hale, J. M.; Myrskylä, M.; Kulu, H.:

Cognitive impairment and partnership status in the United States, 1998–2016, by sex, race/ethnicity, and education

Population Studies 78:1, 167–177. (2024)

Gerstorf, D.; Ram, N.; Drewelies, J.; Düzel, S.; Eibich, P.; Steinhagen-Thiessen, E.; Liebig, S.; Goebel, J.; Demuth, I.; Villringer, A.; Wagner , G. G.; Lindenberger, U.; Ghisletta, P.:

Today’s older adults are cognitively fitter than older adults were 20 years ago, but when and how they decline is no different than in the past

Psychological Science 34:1, 22–34. (2023)

Myrskylä, M.; Hale, J. M.; Schneider, D. C.; Mehta, N. K.:

Trends in cognitive impairment among older adults in the USA and Europe, 1996-2018

MPIDR Working Paper WP-2023-044. (2023)

Ruiz, M.; Hu, Y.; Martikainen, P.; Bobak, M.:

Life course socioeconomic position and cognitive aging trajectories: a cross-national cohort study in China and England

Innovation in Aging 7:6, 1–13. (2023)

Sharma, S.; Hale, J. M.; Myrskylä, M.; Kulu, H.:

Racial, ethnic, nativity, and educational disparities in cognitive impairment and activity limitations in the United States, 1998–2016

Demography 60:5, 1441–1468. (2023)

Hale, J. M.; Schneider, D. C.; Mehta, N. K.; Myrskylä, M.:

Understanding cognitive impairment in the U.S. through the lenses of intersectionality and (un)conditional cumulative (dis)advantage

MPIDR Working Paper WP-2022-029. (2022)

Sharma, S.; Hale, J. M.; Myrskylä, M.; Kulu, H.:

Disparities in the population burden of joint cognitive and physical impairment in the US, 1998-2016

MPIDR Working Paper WP-2022-001. (2022)

Wahl, H.-W.; Drewelies, J.; Düzel, S.; Lachman, M. E.; Smith, J.; Eibich, P.; Steinhagen-Thiessen, E.; Demuth, I.; Lindenberger, U.; Wagner , G. G.; Ram, N.; Gerstorf, D.:

Subjective age and attitudes toward own aging across two decades of historical time

Psychology and Aging 37:3, 413–429. (2022)

Hale, J. M.; Schneider, D. C.; Gampe, J.; Mehta, N. K.; Myrskylä, M.:

Rejoinder to "The Prevalence of Cognitive Impairment Is Not Increasing in the United States: A Critique of Hale et al. (2020)"

Epidemiology 32:5, 717–720. (2021)

Sáenz, J. L.; Díaz-Venegas, C.; Crimmins, E. M.:

Fertility history and cognitive function in late life: the case of Mexico

Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences 76:4, e140–e152. (2021)

Hale, J. M.; Schneider, D. C.; Gampe, J.; Mehta, N. K.; Myrskylä, M.:

Trends in the risk of cognitive impairment in the U.S., 1996-2014

Epidemiology 31:5, 745–754. (2020)

Hale, J. M.; Schneider, D. C.; Mehta, N. K.; Myrskylä, M.:

Cognitive impairment in the U.S.: lifetime risk, age at onset, and years impaired

SSM-Population Health 11:100577, 1–9. (2020)

Díaz-Venegas, C.; Downer, B.; Langa, K. M.; Wong, R.:

Cognitive functioning of U.S. adults by race and Hispanic origin

In: Contextualizing health and aging in the Americas: effects of space, time and place, 85–107. Cham: Springer. (2019)

Díaz-Venegas, C.; Semper-Ternent, R.; Michaels-Obregón, A.; Wong, R.:

The effect of educational attainment on cognition of older adults: results from the Mexican Health and Aging Study 2001 and 2012

Aging and Mental Health 23:11, 1586–1594. (2019)

Gerstorf, D.; Drewelies, J.; Düzel, S.; Smith, J.; Wahl, H.-W.; Schilling, O. K.; Kunzmann, U.; Siebert, J. S.; Katzorreck, M.; Eibich, P.; Demuth, I.; Steinhagen-Thiessen, E.; Wagner , G. G.; Lindenberger, U.; Heckhausen, J.; Ram, N.:

Cohort differences in adult-life trajectories of internal and external control beliefs: a tale of more and better maintained internal control and fewer external constraints

Psychology and Aging 34:8, 1090–1108. (2019)

Díaz-Venegas, C.; Schneider, D. C.; Myrskylä, M.; Mehta, N. K.:

Life expectancy with and without cognitive impairment by diabetes status among older Americans

PLOS One 12:12, e0190488–e0190488. (2017)

Hale, J. M.:

Cognitive disparities: the impact of the Great Depression and cumulative inequality on later-life cognitive function

Demography 54:6, 2125–2158. (2017)

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