Our project will determine if state-level variation in the timing and completeness of school desegregation explains Black-White disparities in cognitive impairment and dementia among older adults who attended school in the US South. We will link historical data on state-level school desegregation efforts to the Health and Retirement Study, a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults over 50. Our project will provide insights into broader trends in dementia prevalence and racial disparities in dementia, allowing us to identify the subgroups at greatest risk for dementia.

The major goal of this project is to determine if education operates differently to reduce risk for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD) when it is attained under more (or less) advantaged educational contexts among Black and White older adults.We will address this goal through the creation of a rich, longitudinal data resource of state and local educational contexts that we will link to the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), a nationally representative longitudinal study of U.S. adults over 50. We will estimate variation in these relationships by birth cohort and race.