The association of neighborhood socioeconomic status with executive function and processing speed in cognitively normal Mexican Americans elders from the Health and Aging Brains Study - Health Disparities cohort.

INTRODUCTION Neighborhood socioeconomic status (NSES) has been linked with overall health, and this study will evaluate whether NSES is cross-sectionally associated with cognition in non-Hispanic Whites (NHW) and Mexican Americans (MA) from the Health and Aging Brain: Health Disparities Study (HABS-HD). METHODS The HABS-HD is a longitudinal study conducted at the University of North Texas Health Science Center. The final sample analyzed (n=1312) were 50 years or older, with unimpaired cognition, and underwent an interview, neuropsychological examination, imaging, and blood draw. NSES was measured using the national area deprivation index (ADI) percentile ranking, which considered socioeconomic variables. Executive function and processing speed were assessed by the trail making tests (A and B) and the digit-symbol substitution test, respectively. Linear regression was used to assess the association of ADI and cognitive measures. RESULTS MA were younger, more likely to be female, less educated, had higher ADI scores, performed worse on trails B (all p<0.05), and have lower prevalence of APOE4+ (p<0.001), when compared to NHW. A higher percentage of MA lived in the most deprived neighborhoods than NHW. For NHW, ADI did not predict trails B or DSS scores, after adjusting for demographic variables and APOE4. For MA, ADI predicted trails A, trails B, and DSS after adjusting for demographic covariates and APOE4 status. CONCLUSION Our study revealed that living in an area of higher deprivation was associated with lower cognitive function in MA but not in NHW, which is important to consider in future interventions to slow cognitive decline.