2022 International Conference on Aging in the Americas

Abstract

Longitudinal studies have documented declines in the prevalence of dementia in high-income countries. Such declines have been associated with increases in educational attainment and proper chronic disease management across successive generations of old adults. Most evidence about cognitive reserve and preserving cognitive function through mental engagement comes from high-income or developed countries. Similar research using longitudinal data in Low-Middle-Income countries (LMIC) can provide insights on factors potentially mediating cognitive declines of older adults from understudied groups. In LMICs with large informal labor markets, older adults with jobs in the informal sector may be able to stay mentally engaged longer over their life compared to high-income or developed countries. To investigate if this assumption holds true, we proposed to develop a cognitive index to examine cognitively stimulating activities based on occupations, and evaluate if cognitive demands associated with higher levels of cognitive functioning in later life. We identified 130 unique occupation codes from 2012 Mexican Health Aging Study (MHAS) and selected one to four cases per code for a total of 440 observations as a representative sub-sample for matching. Three raters with graduate degrees independently selected corresponding Occupational Information Network (ONET) occupation codes with 130 MHAS occupation codes. The matching is guided by MHAS occupation descriptions, MHAS open-ended questions and ONET job descriptions. We used Delphi method to achieve matching agreements. Each successful 1:1 matching requires at least two raters came out with the same codes or reaches a consensus after a group discussion. We generated the end product of 1:1 matching between MHAS and ONET occupation codes. We will use this 1:1 matching between MHAS and ONET to develop our occupation-based cognitive demand index and further use this index to examine longitudinal cognitive change in MHAS.