Alzheimer's & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer's Association
Outdoor extreme heat-related dementia risk and the role of socioeconomic disparities: evidence from 20 years of data on US older adults
By Choi EY, Mage SM and Ailshire JA.
Abstract
Introduction
Extreme heat is increasingly recognized as a significant threat to brain health. However, human evidence from large, longitudinal studies remains limited. We examine whether outdoor heat exposure is associated with incident dementia and whether socioeconomic factors moderate this risk.
Methods
Leveraging data from the 2000 to 2020 Health and Retirement Study (N = 28,512), we assigned census-tract-level 5-year exposure to the number of "Extreme Caution" (90°F to 102°F [32.2°C to 39.3°C]) and "Danger+" (≥103°F [39.4°C]) heat days, adjusting for moves. Fine-Gray subdistribution hazard models estimated dementia risk, treating death as a competing event.