Sex/gender differences in lifetime dementia risk among Asian American and White older adults.

Abstract

Evidence on differences in dementia risk by sex and gender is mixed. We aimed to compare lifetime dementia risk by sex/gender among Asian American and non-Latino White adults aged 60 and older. We included Chinese (n = 6415), Filipino (n = 5020), Japanese (n = 3314), South Asian (n = 1061), and non-Latino White (n = 143,667) Kaiser Permanente Northern California members aged ≥60 years who completed health surveys (2002-2020) and were dementia-free at baseline. We estimated cause-specific cumulative dementia incidence from age 60 to 95 years (i.e., lifetime dementia risk, treating death as a competing event) and evaluated sex/gender differences. Lifetime dementia risk was higher among women in all groups, ranging from 7 (95% CI: 2-13) percentage points higher for Japanese women vs. men to 21 (8-38) percentage points higher for South Asian women vs. men. Variations of sex/gender differences across racial and ethnic groups are potentially driven by dementia-free mortality and social and structural factors.