Identifying Early Predictors of Cognitive Impairment and Dementia in a Large Nationally Representative U.S. Sample

The number of older adults in the United States and worldwide is growing, and because age is the most important predictor of dementia, the number of persons living with this condition is also expected to grow. Detecting elevated risk for dementia years before its onset would help older adults prepare for the risk of developing this condition and guide health-care providers, policymakers, and the government to more efficiently target resources to delay the onset or mitigate the effects of this condition. To support these efforts, the authors of this report aim to identify the predictors of dementia and cognitive impairment for individuals in the United States up to 20 years in advance of the onset of this condition, using the cognition and dementia measures from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), a large, nationally representative, longitudinal survey of the U.S. population over age 50.