The influence of Area Deprivation Index on cognition in cognitively‐normal adults as measured by Principal Component Analysis of Neuropsychological Data

Abstract

AbstractBackgroundPrevious research has demonstrated that neighborhood disadvantage is associated with worse health outcomes including increased risk for dementia. The Area Deprivation Index (ADI) measure represents the theoretical domains of income, education, employment, and housing quality, which allows for the ranking of neighborhoods based on socioeconomic disadvantage. In the present study, we hypothesized that greater neighborhood disadvantage (i.e., higher ADI scores) would be associated with lower cognitive function after controlling for age, education, and sex.MethodPrincipal component analysis (PCA) was used to examine the component structure of a neuropsychological test battery administered to 852 adult participants enrolled in the Southern Illinois University Longitudinal Cognitive Aging Study (SIU LCAS). The vast majority of the cohort was White/Not Hispanic (>98.0%) and female (72.4%). Mean age and education were 67.5 years and 14.8 years, respectively. Linear regression analysis was used to examine the relationship between ADI and PCA cognitive component scores after controlling for age, education, and sex.ResultPCA identified four cognitive components, which were labeled speed/flexibility, visuospatial skills, word list learning/memory, and story memory (immediate and delayed recall). Regression analysis revealed that all three demographic variables were significantly associated with each cognitive component score (p<0.001). After controlling for age, gender, and education, higher ADI scores were associated with lower cognitive component scores for only the speed/flexibility component (p = 0.03). Age, education, and sex accounted for 23% of the variance in the speed/flexibility component. ADI accounted for only an additional 0.4% of the variance in the speed/flexibility component. There was no significant relationship between ADI scores and the visuospatial skills, word list learning/memory, and story memory components.ConclusionOur results suggest that the relationship between greater neighborhood disadvantage and poorer cognitive function are very subtle and may only be present for some, but not all, cognitive domains. One major limitation in the present study was that collection of cognitive data and ADI calculations were not synchronous. More studies are needed to better understand the relationship between neighborhood disadvantage and cognitive functioning.