Surprisingly strong link found between a woman’s address and her memory decline

A new study suggests that women who spend midlife in neighborhoods surrounded by high poverty may experience faster memory decline, especially in the ability to recall information. The research tracked over a thousand women across the United States and found that exposure to concentrated neighborhood poverty was linked to sharper drops in episodic memory over time. The decline was most pronounced among Black women. The findings were published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association.

While earlier research has shown that people in lower-income neighborhoods face higher risks for various health conditions, including memory decline and dementia, most studies have examined each person’s immediate residential area in isolation. They often did not consider how poor neighborhoods might be clustered together or how neighborhood conditions change over time.

“Research has shown that people living in low-income neighborhoods are more likely to develop various physical and mental illnesses and tend to have shorter lifespans than people living in higher-income areas. However, people’s neighborhood exposures are not restricted to the immediate areas around their homes, as they tend to actively seek resources, such as food, from nearby neighborhoods to meet their daily needs,” said study author Jinshil Hyun, an assistant professor in the Saul R. Korey Department of Neurology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine

“We hypothesized that individuals living in low-income neighborhoods might successfully access better resources elsewhere, unless their communities are surrounded entirely by other low-income neighborhoods. In such cases, their access would be severely restricted, potentially harming their health-related behaviors and health outcomes. We chose to investigate whether living in areas of more concentrated poverty affects cognitive health among midlife women.”

For their new study, the researchers considered both the person’s neighborhood and the surrounding areas to measure concentrated poverty. They also accounted for changes in address over time, allowing them to assess long-term exposure to neighborhood disadvantage. Rather than relying on general cognitive tests, the researchers focused on specific cognitive skills that often decline with age: processing speed, working memory, and episodic memory. The goal was to understand whether living in high-poverty “hot spots” during midlife would predict declines in these areas—and whether the effects differed across racial and ethnic groups.

“The Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation (SWAN) provided the opportunity to examine this question using data collected over (up to 14 years of data) in women at over midlife women from 5 sites in the United States,” Hyun explained.

The study followed 1,391 women from Ann Arbor, Boston, Chicago, Alameda and Contra Costa County, Los Angeles, Jersey City, and Pittsburgh. Participants ranged in age from 49 to 60 at the study’s cognitive starting point. The researchers followed them for up to 13.5 years and conducted repeated assessments of their memory and thinking abilities. They also gathered information on a range of factors known to influence brain health, including education, menopause status, financial hardship, physical activity, smoking, alcohol use, and cardiovascular health.

To measure neighborhood poverty, the researchers used U.S. Census data to calculate poverty rates in each participant’s home census tract and the surrounding tracts. They categorized neighborhoods into three levels: low, moderate, and high concentrated poverty. High-concentration areas were defined as those with unusually high poverty rates that were geographically clustered. These designations took into account how often participants moved and how their neighborhood conditions changed over time.

The main finding was that women living in high concentrated poverty areas experienced a faster decline in episodic memory, which includes both immediate and delayed recall of information. Episodic memory is the ability to remember specific events or pieces of information from one’s own experience. Unlike processing speed, which naturally tends to decline in midlife, episodic memory often remains more stable. A sharper-than-expected decline in this type of memory during midlife can be an early warning sign of cognitive problems later in life, including dementia.

Women living in high-poverty neighborhoods saw a 7% decline in immediate and delayed episodic memory over a 10-year span. The decline in delayed recall was even steeper—about 10%—for Black women living in those same neighborhoods. In contrast, women living in lower poverty areas either did not experience this level of decline or saw only mild reductions. This pattern remained consistent even when accounting for differences in education, smoking, alcohol use, menopause status, and physical activity.

Processing speed and working memory were also affected by neighborhood poverty but in different ways. Women in poorer neighborhoods had lower average scores on these tests at the start of the study. However, the rate at which these abilities declined over time did not differ significantly across neighborhood types. This suggests that neighborhood poverty may shape baseline brain health but does not necessarily speed up age-related decline in all cognitive areas equally.

“Experiencing cognitive decline is a natural part of aging, and different aspects of cognition decline at different rates,” Hyun told PsyPost. “For example, processing speed typically starts to slow down in early adulthood, while memory usually remains stable until later in life. However, our study revealed that women living in areas of concentrated poverty experienced accelerated memory decline even during midlife (approximately 7% per decade). Those living in higher income areas did not show significant memory decline. This suggests that living in highly concentrated low-income neighborhoods may be related to increased rates of cognitive aging, potentially increasing the risk of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.”

To test whether other factors could explain the link between neighborhood poverty and memory decline, the researchers considered cardiovascular health risks and physical activity levels. Both are known to influence cognitive function. However, these factors did not fully explain the memory differences observed in this study. This indicates that other pathways—possibly involving chronic stress, environmental toxins, or reduced access to stimulating environments—may be contributing to the decline.

“I was not surprised that living in high-poverty neighborhoods was associated with faster cognitive decline, but the magnitude of this effect was unexpectedly large,” Hyun said. “While residents of affluent neighborhoods showed no significant memory decline, residents of areas with concentrated poverty experienced a 7% decline per decade. Greater memory decline in midlife could serve as an early indicator of future Alzheimer’s risk. Alzheimer’s disease currently has no cure, and effective treatment options are limited. Therefore, addressing neighborhood and individual risk factors of Alzheimer’s disease as early as in midlife would be crucial.”

The researchers also looked at whether the effects of neighborhood poverty varied by race and ethnicity. They found that Black women living in high-poverty areas experienced the most rapid decline in delayed episodic memory. This may reflect the compounding effects of systemic disadvantage, such as racial discrimination and economic segregation, which can create chronic stress and limit access to health-promoting resources.

As with all research, the study has some limitations. For instance, the sample was drawn from urban areas, and the results may not apply to women living in rural settings. The study also did not account for neighborhood conditions earlier in life, which may have lasting effects on brain health. In addition, the study focused on where participants lived, not where they worked or spent their daily routines. These places may also influence cognitive health.

Finally, while the study found links between living in areas of concentrated poverty and memory decline, it could not confirm exactly how this relationship works. Future research is needed to identify which neighborhood features—such as access to parks, quality of schools, exposure to air pollution, or social cohesion—might influence cognitive aging. Real-time location tracking and environmental data could help researchers understand how different places shape health over time.

“Our next step is to better understand how people move through and use their surrounding areas in daily life,” Hyun said. “In a different study, the Einstein Aging Study, we are collecting GPS data from individuals to see whether their ability to travel to different neighborhoods is limited by where they live. By identifying these patterns, we can suggest targeted solutions that address both community-level factors (like improving neighborhood conditions) and personal-level strategies to support healthier lifestyles. Ultimately, our goal is to reduce the risk of cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease for everyone.”

The study was funded by the National Institute on Aging, the Alzheimer’s Association, the Sylvia and Leonard Marx Foundation, and the Czap Foundation.

The study, “Exposure to neighborhood concentrated poverty is associated with faster decline in episodic memory among midlife women,” was authored by Jinshil Hyun, Mary Schiff, Charles B. Hall, Bradley M. Appelhans, Emma Barinas-Mitchell, Rebecca C. Thurston, Carrie A. Karvonen-Gutierrez, Monique M. Hedderson, Imke Janssen, and Carol A. Derby.