Associations of Immigrant Generation with Level and Change in Self-Reported Everyday Cognition and Objectively Measured Cognition

INTRODUCTION Evidence on cognitive aging differences across immigrant generations is limited.

METHODS Kaiser Healthy Aging and Different Life Experiences (KHANDLE) participants reported immigrant generation, categorized as adulthood immigrants (immigrated ≥18 y of age, n=294, 14.51%), childhood immigrants (immigrated <18, n=105, 5.18%), second-generation (US-born with ≥1 foreign-born parent, n=553, 27.29%), and third-generation or later (reference, n=1074, 53.01%). Verbal episodic memory (VEM), executive function (EF), and everyday cognition (12-item Ecog) were assessed up to 4 times. Level and change in cognition were modeled with linear mixed-effects regressions.

RESULTS Compared with third-generation participants, adulthood immigrants had worse VEM [(β = -0.19; 95% CI: -0.30, -0.08); EF (β = -0.61; -0.72, -0.50); and Ecog (β = 0.29; 0.19, 0.40)]; childhood immigrants had lower EF [β = -0.21 (-0.36, -0.05)]; and second-generation participants had worse VEM [β = -0.11 (-0.20, -0.02)], EF [β = -0.10 (-0.19, -0.01)], and Ecog [β = 0.10 (0.009, 0.18)]. Cognitive change did not differ by immigrant generation.

CONCLUSIONS Individuals who immigrated in adulthood averaged worse cognitive scores and self-reported everyday cognition.