Introduction

[abigailmondin]

Introduction for final report

The relationship between education and dementia is one that has been studied previously, and from different angles. In our research, we specifically looked at how the amount of education one receives impacts their chance of developing dementia or other cognitive problems later in life. This is an important relationship for society to understand as a majority of individuals will receive some form of education for some duration of time, as well as live into their older ages. Knowing how one affects the other can help us take steps to prevent the development of dementia in future generations, but to also recognize the likelihood of an individual developing dementia or some other cognitive problem and be prepared. This topic was presented to us by Professor Flores-Lagunes, an economics professor of Syracuse University, in a much broader question. For our purposes, we chose to narrow down the question and focus on how the amount of education an individual receives impacts their cognitive health and chance of developing dementia. This topic resonates with each member of our team for various reasons, but ultimately, we all have a general interest in the topic and thought it critical to better understand the relationship and its’ implications on society. Throughout our research we hope to answer the following question: Can a person’s amount of education and its quality decrease the chances of having dementia or cognitive problems in older ages? We will do this by utilizing the 2016 RAND Health and Retirement Study (HRS). This is a study that is utilized by researchers and analysts looking to study aging. It collects health and socioeconomic information from respondents over the age of 50 years. We will look at variables such as forgetfulness or getting lost as an indicator of cognitive health and compare those to the number of years of education respondents received and to whether or not they have dementia. Unfortunately, we do not believe that we have found very much definitive proof that long-term education improves cognitive health and reduces the chance of developing dementia. However, in figures throughout our report there are indicators that our hypothesis is not definitively wrong either. There is still much room for exploration in this field of research. Had we had more time or resources, we would have liked to look at more variables that could be used as indicators of cognitive health, look at the data available for this topic across countries, and consider how economic status may impact education and in turn dementia.

• In section 2, we review the existing literature.
• In section 3, we analyze theory in relation to our hypothesis.
• In section 4, we describe our data.
• In section 5, we explain our analysis and illustrate what our results mean.
• In section 6, (optional)
• In section 7, we conclude and summarize our findings.

[kbuzard]

@abigailmondin Make sure to turn the bullet points in the end into a paragraph before you submit.

[abigailmondin]

Revised:

The relationship between education and dementia is one that has been studied previously, and from different angles. In our research, we specifically looked at how the amount of education one receives impacts their chance of developing dementia or other cognitive problems later in life. This is an important relationship for society to understand as a majority of individuals will receive some form of education for some duration of time, as well as live into their older ages. Knowing how one affects the other can help us take steps to prevent the development of dementia in future generations, but to also recognize the likelihood of an individual developing dementia or some other cognitive problem and be prepared. This topic was presented to us by Professor Flores-Lagunes, an economics professor of Syracuse University, in a much broader question. For our purposes, we chose to narrow down the question and focus on how the amount of education an individual receives impacts their cognitive health and chance of developing dementia. This topic resonates with each member of our team for various reasons, but ultimately, we all have a general interest in the topic and thought it critical to better understand the relationship and its’ implications on society. Throughout our research we hope to answer the following question: Can a person’s amount of education and its quality decrease the chances of having dementia or cognitive problems in older ages? We will do this by utilizing the 2016 RAND Health and Retirement Study (HRS). This is a study that is utilized by researchers and analysts looking to study aging. It collects health and socioeconomic information from respondents over the age of 50 years. Initially when the topic was presented to us, the 2016 Harmonized Cognitive Assessment Protocol (HCAP) was the supporting dataset recommended to us. However, this did not contain any information on the respondent’s education, because of this we pivoted to use the 2016 RAND HRS dataset. There is more current data available than the year 2016, but we chose to stick with this year due to the fact that the faculty member who recommended the HCAP had suggested the year 2016. Using the 2016 RAND HRS data, we will look at variables such as forgetfulness or getting lost as an indicator of cognitive health and compare those to the number of years of education respondents received and to whether or not they have dementia. Unfortunately, we do not believe that we have found very much definitive proof that long-term education improves cognitive health and reduces the chance of developing dementia. However, in figures throughout our report there are indicators that our hypothesis is not definitively wrong either. There is still much room for exploration in this field of research. Had we had more time or resources, we would have liked to look at more variables that could be used as indicators of cognitive health, look at the data available for this topic across countries, and consider how economic status may impact education and in turn dementia. In section 2, we review the existing literature. In section 3, we analyze theory in relation to our hypothesis. In section 4, we describe our data. In section 5, we explain our analysis and illustrate what our results mean. In section 6, (optional). In section 7, we conclude and summarize our findings.