The impact of childhood and adulthood stressors on later-life cognitive function: evaluating birth cohort differences

Although life course research has shown that childhood stressors can exert long-term effects into older adulthood, few studies have explored alternative ways of measuring stressors across childhood and adulthood, or tested their invariance across birth cohorts. This study examined birth cohort differences in the relationships between childhood and adulthood stressors and later-life cognitive function. Using data from the Health and Retirement Study (N=10,757; age: 50-85), we conducted parallel analyses across three birth cohorts: War Babies (1942-1947), Early Baby Boomers (1948-1953) and Mid Baby Boomers (1954-1959). We estimated a series of nested linear regression models for each cohort, and further evaluated how different types of stressors impact cognitive function across birth cohorts. Greater childhood stressors predicted worse cognitive function among Early Baby Boomer cohort only. Upon examination of the individual stressor categories, higher levels of adult financial stressors were significantly associated with lower cognitive function within all three birth cohorts. In addition to adult financial stressors, greater childhood financial stressors were related to worse cognitive function for the Early Baby Boomer cohort, and greater relational stressors predicted worse cognitive function for the Mid Baby Boomer cohort. Findings highlight birth cohort differences in the effects of childhood and adulthood stressors on cognitive function, possibly underscoring variations in sociocultural and resilience factors unique to each cohort.