The role of public health interventions early in life for long-term cognitive health and dementia

Risk factors for dementia accumulate across the life-course.

Correlation studies suggest already very early life health factors, such as pregnancy and birth complications, may affect dementia in old age.

To what extent these associations represent a causal relationship and whether public health interventions early in life can reduce dementia risk is unknown.

This project aims to evaluate the causal link between public health interventions targeting very early life health with respect to their long-term health effects on dementia risk.

We will investigate the transition from home births to maternity homes and the introduction of free maternity/infant care, using collected and digitized historical data on reforms combined with individual-level data from administrative registers, covering the total cohorts born 1930-1950 in Sweden. To estimate causal relationships, we rely on quasi-experimental methods.

The evaluation is complemented with (i) original analyses on very early life risk factors for dementia using newly digitized obstetric records data for 35,500 individuals, covering a subset of the total cohorts, and (ii) mediation analysis focusing on the role of education. To achieve project goals, we rely on the expertise of an interdisciplinary team of researchers.

Project results are relevant for understanding future dementia trajectories globally and will provide important insights to if and how very early life public health policy can effectively reduce dementia.