A new study led by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Newcastle University in the U.K. finds that the share of adults living with dementia rose substantially across several Latin American and Caribbean sites over the past two decades. The research provides the first direct evidence that some parts of Latin America are moving in the opposite direction of dropping dementia rates in the U.S. and other wealthy nations.
The study appears July 13 in JAMA Neurology.
The researchers analyzed data from 16,950 adults ages 65 and older in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Peru and Puerto Rico, collected first in the early 2000s and then about 20 years later. Over that time, dementia prevalence in Mexico, Peru and Puerto Rico rose significantly, from roughly one in 10 older adults to nearly one in six. Dementia rates held stable in Cuba and the Dominican Republic.
“For decades, almost everything we knew about whether dementia was becoming more or less common came from wealthy countries outside of Latin America,” said first author Jorge Llibre-Guerra, MD, an assistant professor of neurology at WashU Medicine. “We simply didn’t have that picture for Latinos, even as the region’s population is aging faster than almost anywhere else. What we found is sobering: The gains made elsewhere in the world are not reaching everyone, and it underscores how much the burden of dementia is shaped by the conditions people live in.”