Early-Life Socioeconomic Adversity Associated With Poor Cognitive Health Over The Life Course

Older adults who had lived in deprived neighborhoods as children had more cognitive decline than people who had lived in less deprived neighborhoods as children. The rate of cognitive decline from midlife to older adulthood decreased by 9.2% as neighborhood affluence increased. When neighborhood deprivation levels were divided into thirds, membership in the least-deprived third was associated with a 17.7% slower rate of cognitive decline when compared with the most-deprived third. Living in a deprived neighborhood as an adult was not associated with a difference in the rate of cognitive decline.

These findings were reported in . . .