Abstract
Cannabis use and dementia in older US adults: results from National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979
The prevalence of cannabis use is growing rapidly among older US adults. Adverse health effects of cannabis, including impaired cognition and mood disorders, appear to be more common and severe in older adults. Very little is known about the effects of cannabis use on long-term cognitive outcomes. Increasing cannabis use in older adults and widespread commercialization create an urgent need to evaluate the net impact of cannabis use on cognitive function.
Data limitations are a primary hurdle in research on cannabis use and cognitive function: 1) most cannabis research in older adults has small sample sizes or is cross-sectional; 2) few cohorts capture both cannabis exposure and cognitive outcomes; and 3) we lack data on life course use in older adults. A critical next step in this work is to describe current and life course use histories, especially for the middle-aged cohorts about to enter the ages where cognitive decline risk rapidly increases. Our long-term goal is to provide rigorous evidence on how cannabis use influences cognitive function. This proposal advances this agenda by characterizing life course sequences of cannabis use and evaluating links between cannabis use and cognitive function in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLYS79). In Aim 1 we will apply sequence analysis to early to working age adulthood cannabis use reported by NLSY79 participants, describing clusters overall and differences for racial/ethnic minority groups and rural residents. In Aim 2, we will estimate the associations of these cannabis use clusters with midlife cognitive outcomes in NLSY79. Robust evidence about how cannabis affects cognitive function is urgently needed. There is a particular need for evidence on potentially disparate impacts across rural communities and racial/ethnic minority groups, communities who have experienced disproportionate impacts of substance use and may be either disproportionately harmed or helped by increased legalization and impacts on cannabis use. Findings from this proposal will form the foundation of an R01 proposal to further elaborate the prevalence, lifecourse patterns, and AD/ADRD consequences of cannabis use.