Adam Roth
Oklahoma State University, OK·Social Science
Older adults in rural areas develop cognitive impairment, meaning declines in memory and thinking, at higher rates than those in cities. One possible reason is the social environment: friendships, frequent contact and participation in social events can keep the mind stimulated and may build resilience against decline.
- Fields
Social Science
Public Health & Epidemiology
Psychology
- Topics
cognitive aging
cognitive impairment
dementia risk
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through May 2027
What they work on
- Characterize the daily social interactions and activities of older adults in rural and urban areas, using surveys and ecological momentary assessments, which are brief repeated check-ins during everyday life.
- Assess whether personal social networks, face-to-face interactions and activity spaces explain or alter the relationship between rural or urban residence and cognitive function in older adults, using social network analysis.
- Explore how changes in older adults' social environments over two survey waves relate to changes in their cognitive function in rural and urban settings.
More about the research
Most past studies, however, measured social life with only one or two simple questions. This project asks which specific parts of older adults' social worlds best explain the rural-urban gap in cognitive health.
Why it matters
Cognitive impairment burdens older adults, their families and the health care system, and rural communities bear a larger share. By pinpointing which social factors, such as network size, daily contact or places visited, relate to cognitive function, this work could identify new targets for screening and interventions to reduce cognitive impairment in rural and urban older populations.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Evan Jordan
Indiana University, IN·Public Health & Epidemiology
Determine where, when, and what environmental stressors are experienced by 300 urban and 300 rural Indiana residents with mild cognitive impairment, using the STRIVE smartphone app, GPS tracking, and smartwatch data.
Lauren Rutter
Indiana University, IN·Psychology·Early-career
Examine how cognitive performance, perceived stress and psychiatric symptoms relate across individuals and over time, in an existing sample from the Indiana Alzheimer's Disease Research Center.
Alyssa Goldman
Boston College, MA·Social Science·Early-career
Estimate how personal social networks and social activities like volunteering change during the final five years of life, using growth curve models on National Health and Aging Trends Study data.
The school
Oklahoma State University: 15 labs on PI Pages, $254M a year on research, 238 research doctorates a year.
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