RELATIVE RATES OF DEMENTIA BY MULTIPLE CASE DEFINITIONS, OVER 2 PREVALENCE PERIODS, IN 3 SOCIOCULTURAL GROUPS

The North Manhattan Aging Project registry, using both Reporting and S urvey Components, identifies dementia cases among Latino, African-Amer ican, and non-Latino white sociocultural groups (9,349 persons 65 year s of age or older) in contiguous census tracts. During a 2-year preval ence period of the reporting component, 1,592 persons were reported to the Registry and screened with five widely used brief cognitive measu res; 844 were evaluated in a ''clinical core,'' and 452 met research c riteria for dementia, covering all subtypes, according to DSM-III-R cr iteria. Thirteen different case definitions for dementia were applied to the sociocultural groups at three levels of educational achievement , examining for associations with rates of dementia cases and controll ing for age. The following findings were robust across case definition s: sociocultural membership was not associated, but lower education wa s associated, with increased rates of recorded dementia; however, the patterns of the association with education varied across sociocultural groups.