Impact of educational attainment on time to cognitive decline among marginalized older adults: Cohort study of 20,311 adults

Background: The effect of years of education on the maintenance of healthy cognitive functioning may differ by race and ethnicity given historical and ongoing inequities in educational quality.Methods: We examined 20,311 Black, Latinx, and White adults aged 51-100 from the Health and Retirement Study (2008-2016). Telephone Interview for Cognitive Status-27 data was used to measure cognitive functioning. Generalized additive mixed models were stratified by race and ethnicity and educational attainment (=12 vs. <12 years). Selected social determinants of health, all-cause mortality, time-varying health and healthcare utilization characteristics, and study wave were included as covariates.Results: On average, Black and Latinx adults scored lower at baseline compared to White adults regardless of educational attainment (p < 0.001), with a significant overlap in the distributions of scores. The rate of cognitive decline was non-linear for Black, Latinx, and White adults (p < 0.001), and a period of stability was witnessed for those with higher educational attainment irrespective of race and ethnicity. Compared to Black, Latinx, and White adults with lower educational attainment, higher-educated White adults received the greatest protection from cognitive decline (13 years; 64 vs. 51), followed by Latinx (12 years; 67 vs. 55), and Black adults (10 years; 61 vs. 51). Latinx adults experienced cognitive decline beginning at a later age.Conclusions: The extent to which higher educational attainment protects adults from cognitive decline differs by race and ethnicity, such that higher-educated White adults received a greater benefit than higher-educated Black or Latinx adults.