AbstractBackgroundThe effect of family history on risk of developing late‐onset AD differs across race/ethnicity; however, the mechanisms underlying AD risk or resilience through heritability of genetic, environmental, and health factors are not well understood. Few large‐scale cohort studies have prospectively‐collected data of both parental and offspring generations and most intergenerational AD research is performed among volunteer‐based, well‐educated, White parents and offspring. We examined whether the association of midlife cognitive function with parental dementia status differs across race and ethnicity.MethodCognitive function was assessed in non‐Latinx White (n=66), non‐Latinx Black (n=181), Latinx English speaking (n=224), and Latinx Spanish speaking (n=362) people age 27 to 91 (mean age=56.5). Participants were offspring of participants in WHICAP, a community‐based sample of Medicare‐eligible residents of Washington Heights aged 65 and older. Of the 833 offspring, 610 families were represented, of which 176 (29%) parents were demented. We examined the association of parental dementia status on offspring measures of memory, attention, working memory, fluency, and processing speed, after adjusting for offspring age, sex/gender, parental education, and family relatedness, and tested for interactions between parental dementia status and racial/ethnic group. Next, we used multiple‐group analyses determined whether parental baseline memory performance predicted offspring cognitive test scores, adjusting for covariates.ResultOffspring of WHICAP parents with dementia obtained lower scores on measures of memory, working memory, and attention, but processing speed and language were not affected by parental dementia status. Overall, offspring whose parents had poor memory had lower cognitive function across multiple domains (Figure 1); however, parental memory had a stronger impact on offspring memory, working memory, and fluency in non‐Latinx White and English speaking Latinx participants, compared with non‐Latinx Black and Spanish speaking Latinx participants.ConclusionThis intergenerational study demonstrated that in middle age, offspring of parents with dementia have poorer cognitive function than offspring of parents without dementia, independent of parental SES; however, the strength of this relationship differed by race, ethnicity, and language. Results suggest that social and biological variables that confer familial risk and resilience may differ based on contextual factors that are patterned by racial and linguistic background.