Characterization of cognitive health among a community-based Vietnamese older adult cohort: Associations with demographic and social determinants and medical comorbidities.
TL;DR
Cognitive outcomes in Vietnamese American older adults largely align with those from other diverse older adult populations and emphasize the complex relationships between cognitive performance, demographic factors, medical comorbidities, and social determinants of health, including those specific to immigration history.
Abstract
Objective
This study examined cognitive health in Vietnamese American older adults in association with social determinants of health and a variety of health-related variables.
Method
Participants were 548 volunteers in the Vietnamese Insights into Cognitive Aging Program, which enrolls community-dwelling Vietnamese-speaking older adults. Cognitive outcomes were measured using a global composite and domain-specific measures of memory, language, visuospatial abilities, and executive functions. Medical comorbidities included self-reported overall health, a history of hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and diabetes. Social determinants of health variables included self-reported economic status, neighborhood environment, and migration. Bayesian regression was used to model associations.
Results
Participants had a mean age of 73 ± 5.3 years and resided in the United States for an average of 27 ± 13.1 years, and a majority (63.3%) had ≤12 years of education. In models including all predictors and covariates, lower cognitive performance was related to older age (b = -0.028 to -0.064), less education (b = 0.230-0.385), not speaking English (b = 0.190-0.331), and younger age at immigration (b = 0.010-0.014); lower scores were also seen in people with hypertension (executive, b = -0.156) and diabetes (executive, b = -0.188; visuospatial, b = -0.185; and global, b = -0.208). Cognitive associations with sex, neighborhood trust, income, and general health were more nuanced and, in some cases, varied by which covariates were included in the models.
Conclusions
Findings largely align with those from other diverse older adult populations and emphasize the complex relationships between cognitive performance, demographic factors, medical comorbidities, and social determinants of health, including those specific to immigration history. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).