Historical policies that shape educational attainment have lasting benefits for late-life memory and dementia risk, according to a study led by a Rutgers Health researcher.
The study, published in Epidemiology, compared differences in years of education based on variations in state education mandates with cognitive performance outcomes in residents decades later.
Policies to increase the quantity or quality of education now are likely to have long-term benefits for cognitive outcomes.”
Min Hee Kim, faculty member of the Center for Health Services Research at the Rutgers Institute for Health, Health Care Policy and Aging Research and lead author of the study
Researchers have found that education can be a predictor of better cognitive performance, memory function, life expectancy and delayed onset of Alzheimer’s disease or dementia. Despite previous evidence that educational requirement laws influence older adults’ cognition, gaps in fair research remain. For example, previous research has lumped the educational gains of white older adults and black older adults together, even though school mandates in the United States were not consistently enforced for black children.
While a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, San Francisco from 2022 to 2024, Kim led researchers in examining data from more than 20,000 older Black and white adults and evaluating state education policies. They found that more years of education resulting from state mandatory education laws and laws regarding the quality of education were associated with better overall cognitive performance later in life, including better memory and verbal fluency – important determinants of risk of dementia.
Researchers examined the specific impact of education on Black Americans with regard to former educational policies and opportunities. Among other inequalities, current generations of black older adults received education from a system influenced by racial segregation and racial discrimination.
“Investing in education is important for health care equity,” said Kim, an assistant professor at the Rutgers School of Nursing. “Education provides similar benefits for late-life cognitive outcomes for all racial groups, but the potential impact of improvements in education access and quality is likely to be greater for Black Americans because a greater share of this population is exposed to limited educational resources .”
Kim added that this study supported further research showing that living in states with high-quality education as a child is associated with a lower risk of dementia later in life.
Co-authors include researchers from Montclair State University, Kaiser Permanente Northwest, Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, University of Maryland School of Public Health, Columbia University, University of Alabama at Birmingham and Boston University.
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Magazine reference:
Kim, M.H., et al. (2024). State education policy and cognitive performance trajectories: A natural experiment in a national US cohort of black and white adults. Epidemiology. doi.org/10.1097/ede.0000000000001799.