Depression and Cognitive Decline: A Pooled Cohort Analysis of ARIC, CARDIA, CHS, FOS, MESA, and NOMAS

Depression is common and a modifiable risk factor for dementia. Vascular disease may be a primary mechanism by which depression impacts dementia risk. Depression is more common in women than men, and prevalence and treatment for depression may vary by race/ethnicity. It is critical to understand the extent to which depression could be targeted as a modifiable risk factor to reduce dementia disparities. We will leverage the BP COG dataset, a pooled cohort of six population-based cohort studies of individuals aged 18 to 95 at baseline with repeated measures of depression, cognition, and vascular risk factors. We aim to examine: 1) the association between cumulative depression burden and later-life cognitive trajectories; 2) whether this association differs by sex/gender and race/ethnicity, and 3) the extent to which this association is explained by vascular risk factors.