Winner, 2026 Harrison C. White Outstanding Book Award, Decision-Making, Social Networks, and Society Section, American Sociological AssociationWinner, 2026 O... | CUP

This study examines the relationship between early-life bilingualism and midlife cognitive health. Using data from the 1980, 1982, and 2021 waves of High School...

A new study co-authored by two University of Wisconsin–Madison professors suggests longevity gains across all states and regions for people born between 1941 and 2000, in contrast to previous estimate...

Background Cognitive decline is a disproportionately prevalent condition among older Mexican Americans, highlighting the need to understand the biopsychosocial factors contributing to cognitive health in this population. The study aims to investigate the longitudinal association between functional difficulty and cognitive decline and to determine the moderating effect of neighborhood disadvantage among older Mexican Americans. Methods We used four waves of data from the Hispanic Established Population for the Epidemiologic Study of the Elderly (2004–2005 to 2012–2013) linked to the 2010 National Neighborhood Data Archive. We selected older Mexican Americans who scored ≥ 21 on the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) at baseline (n = 1,189). Cognitive function was measured by the MMSE. Neighborhood disadvantage was assessed based on five census-tract indicators. Functional difficulty was indicated by limitations in activities of daily living (ADL) and instrumental ADL (IADL). Multilevel mixed-effects regression models were performed to estimate cognitive change over time. Results There was an average decline of 0.70 in the MMSE score as a function of ADL (p < 0.001), but no significant changes were observed for IADL. Significant interactions were observed between study wave and ADL/IADL (both p < 0.001) in predicting MMSE score. Participants with ADL/IADL difficulty experienced faster cognitive decline. Neighborhood disadvantage was associated with cognitive declines among participants with IADL difficulty, but not among those without. Conclusion Neighborhood disadvantage may represent a socioeconomic stressor that can negatively impact cognitive health among older Mexican Americans with functional difficulty. Culturally responsive neighborhood-level efforts may contribute to reducing the risk of cognitive decline among older Mexican Americans.

Dementia prevention research has largely used educational attainment as a proxy for early‐life. Given the known influence of early‐life exposures on brain development, more attention to early‐life exp...

Implementing a live discharge protocol (LDP) from hospice care is a critical component of ensuring safe and compassionate transitions for hospice patients (and their caregivers) who no longer meet eligibility criteria. A live discharge protocol ...

AbstractObjectives. The aims of this study were to determine 1) whether organizational and non-organizational religious participation are associated with c

Despite growing interest in hearing impairment as a potentially modifiable risk factor for dementia, the association is poorly understood. This has implications for whether treating hearing impairment can prevent or delay onset of dementia, as causation is not the only explanation for the associatio …

Findings suggest that interpersonal interactions, including being informed about care and involved in decisions, strongly influence the evaluation of ED visits for PLWD. These findings can support the development of person-centered outcome measures capable of evaluating these priorities.

School of Human Ecology

AbstractObjectives. Recent research has found that life course exposure to contextual socioeconomic disadvantage may accelerate biological aging, providing

Amyloid (A) and vascular (V) pathologies often co‐occur and progress over decades. We leveraged chronicity, defined as the years above a biomarker‐positivity threshold, to examine how the timing of A and V relates to cognitive decline. We modeled ...

A study reveals that a protein called RPA is essential for maintaining chromosome stability by stimulating telomerase. New findings from the University of Wisconsin-Madison suggest that problems with ...