Prevalence of dementia and mild cognitive impairment in the Mexican population: evidence from Mex-Cog, a harmonized cognitive assessment protocol study

Silvia Mejia-Arango, Miguel Arce Rentería, Joseph L Saenz, Rebeca Wong and Elizabeth Muñoz

The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, 2026, vol. 81, issue 3, gbaf268.

Abstract: ObjectivesThis study aimed to estimate the prevalence of dementia and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) in Mexico and establish sociodemographic, contextual, and health predictors leveraging the first wave of the Mexican Cognitive Aging Ancillary Study (Mex-Cog), a subsample of the Mexican Health and Aging Study.MethodsData came from the 2016 wave of Mex-Cog. The analytic sample included 1,629 participants aged 60 and older who completed a comprehensive cognitive battery and informant questionnaire. We employed a robust normative approach to classify cognitive impairment and developed an algorithmic classification of MCI/dementia based on standard research criteria. Prevalence rates used nationally-representative sampling weights.ResultsWe estimated the prevalence of dementia at 6.7% [95% confidence interval (CI): 5.4–8.0] and MCI at 10% (95% CI: 8.7–11.7). Older age, lower education, living in rural areas, having a history of stroke, and heart attack were associated with higher odds of dementia. Mild cognitive impairment was associated with older age, female sex, lower education, rural residence, and lack of health insurance.DiscussionLeveraging the nationally-representative and comprehensive cognitive data in Mex-Cog, an algorithm-derived classification of dementia and MCI provided the prevalence of dementia and MCI in Mexico. Besides the association with cerebrovascular and cardiovascular disease, the effect of education, rural residence, and lack of health insurance suggests an unequal burden of MCI and dementia among the aging Mexican population.

Keywords: Neurodegenerative disease; Algorithm classification; Risk factors (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/geronb/gbaf268 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:geronb:v:81:y:2026:i:3:p:gbaf268.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

The Journals of Gerontology: Series B is currently edited by Psychological Sciences - S. Duke Han, PhD and Social Sciences - Jessica A Kelley, PhD, FGSA

More articles in The Journals of Gerontology: Series B from The Gerontological Society of America Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().