The Impact of Social Integration on Cognitive Life Expectancy: A Comparative Study across Racial and Nativity Groups in Elderly U.S. Populations

YIZHOU CHEN, Australian National University
James O'Donnell, Australian National University

Late-life social integration is associated with reduced dementia risk in the elderly in the United States, but its impacts on cognitive life expectancy across society are unexplored. Our study investigates associations between social integration and cognitive life expectancy across gender, race, and nativity groups, and assesses the potential role of social integration in explaining the Healthy Immigrant effect and the expansion and compression of morbidity. Using Health and Retirement Study data (2004–2020), we used multistate life tables to estimate cognitive life expectancies by social integration, race, nativity, and gender. According to our results, an increase from the lowest to the highest quartile of social integration is associated with an increase in total life expectancy of 6.8 years for US born Hispanic males, 6.3 years for foreign born Hispanic males, 8.3 years for non-Hispanic white males and 7.4 years for non-Hispanic black males. Migrant Hispanic males and females have the highest life expectancies, though social integration is most strongly associated with cognitive health among non-Hispanic white males and females. Social integration has the potential to both expand and compress cognitive morbidity, with social integration associated with lower risks of dementia and death across stages of cognitive impairment.

Keywords: Health and Morbidity, Population Ageing, Mortality and Longevity, Longitudinal studies

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