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A recent study shed light on the substantial impact of socioeconomic status transitions on dementia risk among individuals aged 75 and older, with downward shifts associated with the highest loss of dementia-free years and upward changes linked to longer periods without dementia throughout life.

While the medical community has acknowledged the correlation between dementia and socioeconomic status, the role of socioeconomic transitions remains relatively understudied.

Published in JAMA Network Open, the research, analyzing data from 9,186 individuals aged 65 and older across 31 regions in Japan between August 2010 and December 2016, delved into the relationship between dementia risk and transitions in socioeconomic status over the course of a person's lifespan.

Of the participants, slightly over half were men, with an average age of approximately 74 years at the study's commencement. Throughout the follow-up period, 800 individuals developed dementia.

According to McKnights.com, the study categorized participants into various socioeconomic status groups based on transitions in their socioeconomic circumstances. For instance, upward transition denoted individuals with a low childhood socioeconomic status and the second-lowest education level, but who achieved the highest household income later in life.

Conversely, downward transition represented individuals who had higher socioeconomic status and education earlier in life but experienced lower income in later years. Stable low transition encompassed individuals who maintained a low socioeconomic status throughout their lives.

Compared to those in the lower-middle socioeconomic status group, individuals experiencing upward transitions exhibited the lowest risk of dementia, followed by those in stable-high transitions, downward transitions, and stable-low transitions. Notably, there was no significant association between upper-middle transitions and dementia risk.

Furthermore, the study revealed that upward socioeconomic changes were correlated with the greatest increases in dementia-free years over the lifespan, whereas downward transitions were linked to the largest loss in lifetime dementia-free years among individuals aged 75 or older.

"Upward transitions were associated with lower risk of dementia and increases in length of dementia-free periods over the life course, whereas the reverse was true for downward transitions," the authors remarked.