New research has identified several community-level factors that may increase people’s risk of experiencing cognitive impairment.
In the study of 2,830 dementia-free US individuals aged 65 years and above, 23.2 per cent of participants were categorised as having mild cognitive impairment.
People who lived in areas with higher neighbourhood disadvantage, higher air pollution, higher homicide rate, and less greenspace had elevated odds of having mild cognitive impairment.
Completing schooling in a Southern US state was also associated with a greater likelihood of mild cognitive impairment. After adjusting for age, race, sex, and education level, the link between mild cognitive impairment and higher neighbourhood disadvantage remained statistically significant.
“As clinicians and researchers, we routinely consider older adults’ individual risk factors for cognitive impairment, but we also need to consider the influence of the social and environmental factors where they live and work,” said corresponding author Mary Ganguli, MD, MPH, of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.
“If planners and policymakers want to reduce disease burden in our communities, they too need to take into account the social determinants of health.”
The authors wrote: “Clinicians and public health officials should of course continue to encourage individuals to reduce their own risk factors for cognitive and functional impairment. However, focusing solely on individual responsibility and health professional interventions should not lead planners and policymakers to ignore the policy and environmental drivers of change.50 If our shared goal is to improve population health, health policy must equally take social and environmental factors into account.”
