Predictive value and weight of factors associated with cognitive performance in Hispanics/Latinos enrolled in the Health and Aging Brain Study: Health Disparities.

Introduction: In this analysis of cognitively unimpaired (CU) Hispanic participants from the Health and Aging Brain Study: Health Disparities (HABS-HD), we aimed to identify the main predictor factors for cognitive performance and their relative importance (weight).

Methods: The HABS-HD is a community-based longitudinal cohort study. Data from 952 CU Hispanics, enrolled from 2017 to February 2024, were analyzed. Random forest, an assembly learning method based on decision trees, was used to cross-sectionally forecast the predictive value of 42 risk factors (4 demographic variables, 4 socioeconomic variables, 6 psychosocial variables, 17 health variables, and 11 plasma and magnetic resonance imaging biomarkers) together, and the weighting of each factor for different cognitive domains (global cognition, memory, language, executive function, attention, and processing speed).

Results: Participants included in the analyses had a mean age of 61.3 years (9.14), 69.4% were female, and had a mean of 10.52 (4.61) years of education. Income, glucose levels, plasma amyloid beta (Aβ)42, total tau, and neurofilament light chain were in the top 10 predictors in six cognitive domains. Age, education years, Penn State Worry Questionnaire, body mass index, and C-reactive protein were the main predictors in four cognitive domains, while plasma Aβ40 was in the top 10 list for five cognitive domains.

Discussion: Results support the notion that cognitive performance depends on interactions among social, economic, biological, and functional factors. The effects of factors together, and the weight of each factor in various cognitive domains may be different in Hispanics. More studies comparing different ethnic groups are necessary to help in the development of tailored interventions to prevent cognitive decline.

Highlights: Numerous factors have been associated with cognitive decline and dementia.Research on these factors has relied on a meta-analysis of their individual association with cognition, consolidating data from different non-Hispanic White populations.Hispanics are the largest minority group in the United States, and only a few studies have analyzed the overall impact of these factors together, and their individual relative effect in different cognitive domains.We found that cognitive performance in Hispanics may be a result of interactions among social, economic, biological, and functional factors.