Growing up in rural areas leads to a long-term disadvantage in cognitive functioning. Even after controlling for differences in education and occupation, living in rural (as opposed to urban) areas early in life remained associated with poorer cognitive performance later in life. This suggests that growing up in rural areas leads to a long-term disadvantage in cognitive functioning.
The study, published in the journal Nature, is based on data from the SHARE survey on health, ageing and retirement in Europe. The researchers created residential trajectories since birth on a sample of more than 38,000 people. They studied the association between residential trajectories in early, middle and late life and three cognitive functioning outcomes: immediate recall, delayed recall and verbal fluency.
The study shows that people living in more socio-economically advantaged neighbourhoods tend to have better cognitive functioning later in life, even if the participants had moved to more advantaged neighbourhoods later on.
Public health policies should therefore take into account that urban-rural inequalities in early life may have long-lasting links to inequalities in cognitive health in the elderly and very old.
Read the article in Nature: Residential trajectories across the life course and their association with cognitive functioning in later life