Epidemiology of and inequalities in ageing

Presentation (2019, June 05)

Symposium: Early detection and prevention of cognitive decline and dementia: Findings from major European collaborative and research initiatives

Scientific Conference (2019, May)

With still no medical cure for dementia available, major research initiatives have been set up to investigate and target the development of dementia at earlier stages. Several ongoing projects focus on ... [more ▼]

With still no medical cure for dementia available, major research initiatives have been set up to investigate and target the development of dementia at earlier stages. Several ongoing projects focus on early detection of dementia with the hope to be able to administer personalized interventions for individuals at high risk. Ongoing clinical trials test different interventions on their potential to prevent or delay the onset of dementia. Complementing those efforts, large and long-spanning observational studies can be used to detect long-term precursors of cognitive aging. Indeed, there is increasing evidence for a large window of opportunity for intervention of several decades that could be used for preventative efforts in dementia. The symposium will bring together major European collaborative and research initiatives in the field of early detection and prevention of dementia. The first part of the symposium will present findings from clinical trials, the second part new findings coming from a range of observational studies. The first paper will report on the design and study cohorts of the European Prevention of Alzheimer’s Dementia Consortium (EPAD) and the TriBEKa project. The second paper will focus on new multifactorial models to quantify prevention potential based on the FINGER trial. The third paper will report an integrated analysis of four longitudinal studies of ageing (OCT0, H70, LASA, and MAP) to evaluate the role of cognitively stimulating activities in the transitions from cognitively normal to slightly impaired, severely impaired, and death with multi-state models. The fourth paper will present the contribution of environmental factors over the life course, in particular air pollution, on cognitive change in the Lothian Birth Cohort of 1936. The last paper makes use of recent developments in approaching causal inference in observational studies and applies these to predict cognitive aging and dementia with data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe. [less ▲]

Data Management Plan of the ERCStG 803239

Report (2019)

The Data Management Plan is a compulsory deliverable of H2020 projects. It will be regularly updated over the course of the project.

Health access and wealth: Does capital structure matter?

Scientific Conference (2018, December)

Determinants of cognitive decline in a large cross-national study using machine learning

in Innovation in Aging (2018, November), 2(S1), 244

Associations of wealth with frailty and memory impairment across the course of aging

in Innovation in Aging (2018, November), 2(S1), 906

Cognitive functioning and decline in relation to urban environmental characteristics

Scientific Conference (2018, November)

Global inequalities 1980-2050: a microdata oriented simulation – Worldsim

Scientific Conference (2018, July 13)

Former global inequality models lack realistic features of the population (age, gender, education, behavior). Worldsim develops a panel sample based simulation of the world population until 2050, relying ... [more ▼]

Former global inequality models lack realistic features of the population (age, gender, education, behavior). Worldsim develops a panel sample based simulation of the world population until 2050, relying on UN, Cepii, etc, big data aggregated forecasts, that we individually disaggregate. The simulation confirms the decline of the world's Gini index, but underlines several paradoxes in the socioecodemography of the world, with increasing gaps between resources and needs. Compared to more standard socioeconomic simulations of inequalities, we provide more substantial characterization of the population, and compared to other global simulations, we capture the dimensions of social divergences between social groups and geographic regions. [less ▲]

Detecting Public Health crises: APC-Detrended methodology and residuals in a 25-country, 35-year mortality matrix

Scientific Conference (2018, June 09)

Background. Mortality-by-cause analyses as done in the Global Burden of Disease 2016 update are helpful to monitor progress of public health improvements within and across countries. However, separate ... [more ▼]

Background. Mortality-by-cause analyses as done in the Global Burden of Disease 2016 update are helpful to monitor progress of public health improvements within and across countries. However, separate analyses by cause and country miss larger patterns of public health crises that are restricted to certain cohorts and periods. Those public health crises may go unnoticed even if they affect several countries and thus come with some threat potential. We propose a new method to detect cohorts with increased mortality at certain ages and periods. Method. We develop an analytical and visualizing technique based on established Age-Period-Cohort-Detrended (APCD) methodology (Chauvel and Schröder 2014). After detecting all-cause mortality increases, plotting the resulting age-period coefficients and APCD residuals in equilateral Lexis diagrams, mortality patterns can be distinguished as age, period, or cohort trends and fluctuations. Age-period interactions are plotted as ‘big red spots’. We employ the new technique in data from the Human Mortality Database, spanning 25-60 years of age, calendar years 1975-2010, and 25 countries. Results. We detect age-period interactions of young-adult cohorts in the early 1990s in Spain, other southern European countries and the U.S. Additional analyses with WHO mortality data show that mortality increases are mostly due to increased HIV/AIDS mortality. Discussion. Country-specific explanations, such as political frustrations in Spain, have been proposed to explain the 1990s increases in HIV/AIDS mortality. However, the new technique suggests that increases in HIV/AIDS mortality were more likely to be due to specific behaviors of cohorts of certain ages in a certain period. We discuss limitations of the method, such as detecting social class mortality differences of affected cohorts. Altogether, the new technique offers intuitive and efficient handling of large amounts of age-country-year mortality information. The method can further be applied in the fields of education, longevity, and demography at large. [less ▲]

Inequality in old age cognition across the world

in Economics and Human Biology (2018), 29

Although cohort and country differences in average cognitive levels are well established, identifying the degree and determinants of inequalities in old age cognitive functioning could guide public health ... [more ▼]

Although cohort and country differences in average cognitive levels are well established, identifying the degree and determinants of inequalities in old age cognitive functioning could guide public health and policymaking efforts. We use all publicly available and representative old age surveys with comparable information to assess inequalities of cognitive functioning in six distinctive age groups of 29 countries. We document that cognitive inequalities in old age are largely determined by earlier educational inequalities as well as gender differential survival rates. For example, a one percentage point increase in the Gini index of past education is associated with an increase of 0.45 percentage points in the Gini index of delayed recall and 0.23 percentage points in the Gini of immediate recall. Results are robust to a variety of alternative explanations and persist even after controlling for gender-related biases in survival rates. Furthermore, we find evidence that unequal opportunities for education -captured by differences in parental background and gender- also have significant effects on inequality of old age cognition. [less ▲]