TY - JOUR T1 - Mother’s education and late-life disparities in memory and dementia risk among US military veterans and non-veterans JF - Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health JO - J Epidemiol Community Health SP - 1162 LP - 1167 DO - 10.1136/jech-2018-210771 VL - 72 IS - 12 AU - Anusha M Vable AU - Chloe W Eng AU - Elizabeth Rose Mayeda AU - Sanjay Basu AU - Jessica R Marden AU - Rita Hamad AU - M Maria Glymour Y1 - 2018/12/01 UR - http://jech.bmj.com/content/72/12/1162.abstract N2 - Background Adverse childhood socioeconomic status (cSES) predicts higher late-life risk of memory loss and dementia. Veterans of U.S. wars are eligible for educational and economic benefits that may offset cSES disadvantage. We test whether cSES disparities in late-life memory and dementia are smaller among veterans than non-veterans.Methods Data came from US-born men in the 1995–2014 biennial surveys of the Health and Retirement Study (n=7916 born 1928–1956, contributing n=38 381 cognitive assessments). Childhood SES was represented by maternal education. Memory and dementia risk were assessed with brief neuropsychological assessments and proxy reports. Military service (veteran/non-veteran) was evaluated as a modifier of the effect of maternal education on memory and dementia risk. We employed linear or logistic regression models to test whether military service modified the effect of maternal education on memory or dementia risk, adjusted for age, race, birthplace and childhood health.Results Low maternal education was associated with worse memory than high maternal education (β = −0.07 SD, 95% CI −0.08 to –0.05), while veterans had better memory than non-veterans (β = 0.03 SD, 95% CI 0.02 to 0.04). In interaction analyses, maternal education disparities in memory were smaller among veterans than non-veterans (difference in disparities = 0.04 SD, 95% CI 0.01 to 0.08, p = 0.006). Patterns were similar for dementia risk.Conclusions Disparities in memory by maternal education were smaller among veterans than non-veterans, suggesting military service and benefits partially offset the deleterious effects of low maternal education on late-life cognitive outcomes. ER -