Gender Differences in the Association between Childhood Socioeconomic Status and Cognitive Function in Later Life

Jiyoung Lyu

doi:10.1155/2015/896876

Abstract

Objectives. This study was aimed to explore the gender differences in the association between childhood socioeconomic status (SES) and cognitive function in later life.Methods. Using a nationally representative sample from the Health and Retirement Study, 5,544 females and 3,863 males were analyzed separately. Growth curve models were used to examine memory status and change in memory from 1998 to 2010.Results. The results showed that SES disadvantage in childhood was associated with lower memory at baseline controlling for adult SES and other covariates. In addition, cumulated disadvantage in SES was associated with poor memory in both genders. Statistically, the impact of cumulative SES on memory function at baseline was significantly different by gender.Discussion. These findings suggest that childhood SES has long-term effects on cognitive function among both men and women, and cumulative SES from childhood to adulthood may be more important for men than women with respect to their memory performance.

Highlights

With the growing interest in cognitive health in later life, many studies have examined the factors related to cognition among older adults
Many previous studies used a variety of childhood socioeconomic status (SES) indicators to examine the relationship between childhood SES and cognition in later life [2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13]
This study explores specific measure of cognitive function such as memory, since memory function has been found Journal of Geriatrics to be a sensitive measure of cognitive change in later life [22]

Summary

Introduction

With the growing interest in cognitive health in later life, many studies have examined the factors related to cognition among older adults. Through the capacity of longitudinal studies, researchers were able to examine the relationship between adult health outcomes and circumstances from earlier stages of the life course [1]. The long-term relationships between early life exposure and social and economic deprivation with later life health disparities are often examined [15]. Childhood events or conditions are often found to have long-term effects on later health outcomes regardless of any other experiences during the life cycle [15, 16]. According to Graham [17], disadvantage at different time periods can have a cumulative effect on later health outcomes

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion