Historical policies shaping educational attainment have enduring benefits for later life memory and risk of dementia, according to a study led by a Rutgers Health researcher. The study , published in Epidemiology , compared the differences in years of education based on variations in state schooling mandates with cognitive performance outcomes in residents decades later. "Policies to increase the quantity or quality of schooling now are likely to have long-term benefits on cognitive outcomes," said Min Hee Kim, a faculty member in the Center for Health Services Research at the Rutgers Institute for Health, Health Care Policy and Aging Research and the lead author of the study.
Researchers have found education can be a predictor of better cognitive performance, memory function, life expectancy and delayed onset of Alzheimer's disease or dementia. Despite the previous evidence that schooling requirement laws impact cognition in older adults, gaps in equitable research remain. For example, previous research has lumped together educational gain of white older adults and Black older adults, although school mandates weren't consistently enforced for Black children in the United States.
When she was a postdoctoral researcher at University of California San Francisco from 2022 to 2024, Kim led researchers in examining data from more than 20,000 older Black and white adults and evaluating state education policies. They found increased years of education as a result of a state's mandat.
