Associations of Long-Term Air Pollution Exposure with Incident Dementia among Older U.S. Adults: The Health and Retirement Study
Year: 2021
Type: conference-abstract
Abstract: BACKGROUND AND AIM: Evidence suggests that long-term exposures to some air pollutants are detrimental for late-life cognition yet associations with incident dementia are less consistent. This may be partially due to the common use of administrative records to identify dementia, which can lead to inaccurate diagnoses and diagnosis patterns that vary by place. This study investigates associations between long-term air pollution exposures and incident dementia in a cohort in which all participants underwent standardized assessments of dementia. METHODS: We used biennial data between 2000 and 2016 from participants 65 years in the nationally representative Health and Retirement Study. Using a validated algorithm based on cognitive testing and proxy information, we classified each participant’s dementia status at each interview. We predicted 10-year average PM2.5, PM10-2.5, NO2, and O3 concentrations at participant addresses before each interview using spatiotemporal models. Associations between air pollution and incident dementia were estimated with time-varying Cox models, adjusting for individual demographics, area-level characteristics, as well as temporal and spatial trends. We fitted both single- and two-pollutant models. RESULTS:Our study population of 16,262 adults (70+6.4 years) was predominantly Non-Hispanic White (77%), Non-Hispanic Black (13%), and Hispanic White (8%). Twenty-one percent of participants developed dementia during follow-up. Overall, we found little evidence that air pollution exposure is associated with incident dementia in our single or multi-pollutant models, especially after adjustment for place. Following detailed individual and area-level adjustments, we observed hazard ratios (HR) ranging from 0.96 to 1.03 per interquartile range (IQR) for the various pollutants. The largest HR of 1.03 (95% CI: 0.94 – 1.12) was found for an IQR difference in PM10-2.5 (5.03 μg/cm3). CONCLUSIONS:This prospective study of older U.S. adults found no consistent evidence that air pollution exposure is associated with increased risk of incident dementia. Associations with pollution may be more apparent with more sensitive measures of cognitive function. KEYWORDS: Air Pollution, Long-Term Exposure, Incident Dementia
Source: ISEE Conference Abstracts
Language: English
Subfield: Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W3195528436