Participants’ own education mediates the association with parental education<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n
By Lori Solomon HealthDay Reporter<\/b>
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WEDNESDAY, June 4, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Parental education may protect offspring’s cognitive health later in life, according to a study published online May 30 in JAMA Network Open<\/em>.<\/p>\n Shengyu Luo, from Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou, China, and colleagues evaluated the association of maternal and paternal education with cognitive decline over time among middle-aged and older adults in four countries. The analysis included 7,898 participants from China, 12,402 from the United States, 6,603 from England, and 9,162 from Mexico.<\/p>\n The researchers found that compared with less than primary education, maternal education at the upper secondary level or higher was associated with slower rates of decline in cognitive state (\u03b2 = 0.082 standard deviations [SD] per year in China; \u03b2 = 0.025 SD per year in the United States; and \u03b2 = 0.040 SD per year in England). In the Mexican cohort, only primary maternal education was associated with slower decline in cognitive state (\u03b2 = 0.010 SD per year). A similar association with slower cognitive state decline results was seen for paternal education at the upper secondary level or higher compared with less than primary in the Chinese (\u03b2 = 0.042 SD per year), U.S. (\u03b2 = 0.027 SD per year), and English cohorts (\u03b2 = 0.044 SD per year). In the Mexican cohort, a significant association was seen for primary paternal education (\u03b2 = 0.010 SD per year). The associations between parental education and annual decline in cognitive state were significantly mediated by the participants’ own education for all cohorts, except Mexico.<\/p>\n “These findings highlight the long-term relevance of parental education for offspring cognitive health across diverse cultural or socioeconomic contexts, and support the potential benefits of improving educational attainment to reduce intergenerational disparities in late-life cognitive health,” the authors write.<\/p>\n