Associations of Immigrant Generation with Level and Change in Self-Reported Everyday Cognition and Objectively Measured Cognition.

Abstract

Introduction: Evidence on cognitive aging differences across immigrant generations is limited.

Methods: Kaiser Healthy Aging and Different Life Experiences (KHANDLE) participants reported immigrant generation, categorized as adulthood immigrants (immigrated ≥18 y of age, n=294, 14.51%), childhood immigrants (immigrated <18, n=105, 5.18%), second-generation (US-born with ≥1 foreign-born parent, n=553, 27.29%), and third-generation or later (reference, n=1074, 53.01%). Verbal episodic memory (VEM), executive function (EF), and everyday cognition (12-item Ecog) were assessed up to 4 times. Level and change in cognition were modeled with linear mixed-effects regressions.

Results: Compared with third-generation participants, adulthood immigrants had worse VEM [(β = -0.19; 95% CI: -0.30, -0.08); EF (β = -0.61; -0.72, -0.50); and Ecog (β = 0.29; 0.19, 0.40)]; childhood immigrants had lower EF [β = -0.21 (-0.36, -0.05)]; and second-generation participants had worse VEM [β = -0.11 (-0.20, -0.02)], EF [β = -0.10 (-0.19, -0.01)], and Ecog [β = 0.10 (0.009, 0.18)]. Cognitive change did not differ by immigrant generation.

Conclusions: Individuals who immigrated in adulthood averaged worse cognitive scores and self-reported everyday cognition.