Educational Attainment and Perceived Need for Future ADL Assistance.

The current study examined whether educational attainment was associated with perceived need of assistance with future activities of daily living (ADL) among middle-aged and early older-aged adults in the United States. Data for 54,946 adults aged 40-65 years from the 2011-2014 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) were analyzed using ordered logistic regression. Adults with more education will on average need less ADL assistance than adults with less education.

Reporting Down syndrome on the death certificate for Alzheimer disease/unspecified dementia deaths.

Background: Death certificates are crucial for understanding population health trends including the burden of disease mortality. Accurate reporting of causes of death on these records is necessary in order to implement adequate public health policies and fund disease research. While there is evidence that Alzheimer disease and unspecified dementia are prevalent among people with Down syndrome, a 2014 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) rule change instructing that Down syndrome should be reported as the underlying cause of death in instances when death occurred from Alzheimer disease or unspecified dementia threatens the accuracy and the utility of death certificates for this population.

COVID-19 mortality burden and comorbidity patterns among decedents with and without intellectual and developmental disability in the US.

Background: While there is ample evidence of increased COVID-19 mortality risk among people with intellectual and developmental disability (IDD), research has not documented whether this higher risk resulted in increased COVID-19 mortality burden in the US or whether comorbidity patterns among COVID-19 deaths are similar or distinct for people with IDD.

Objective: To determine the differences in COVID-19 mortality burden between decedents with and without IDD during the first year of the pandemic.

Methods: This study uses 2020 US death certificate data to compare COVID-19 mortality burden and comorbidity patterns among decedents with and without IDD.