Differences in Cognitive Impairment of U.S. Older Adults by Race and Ethnicity

Carlos Díaz-Venegas, University of Texas at Galveston
Brian Downer, University of Texas at Galveston
Kenneth M. Langa, University of Michigan

Objective: Examine differences in cognition and prevalence of cognitive impairment for Hispanic, non-Hispanic black, and non-Hispanic white older adults in the United States. Data/Methods: The final sample includes 19,099 participants aged 50 or older who received a modified version of the Telephone Interview for Cognitive Status (TICS-M) during the 2010 Health and Retirement Study (HRS) follow-up. Ordinary Least Squares will be used to examine differences in overall and domain specific cognition according to race/ethnicity. Preliminary Results: Cognitive functioning declined with age for all race/ethnicity groups. Overall, non-Hispanic black and white women had higher cognition compared to non-Hispanic black and white men, whereas Hispanic men had higher cognition compared to Hispanic women. Future Work: We plan to assess the effects of age, gender, and educational attainment on differences in cognition, estimate the prevalence of dementia and cognitive impairment no dementia (CIND), and analyze cognitive differences by race/ethnicity including Hispanic subgroups.