American journal of epidemiology
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The hypothesis that a low educational level increases the risk for Alzheimer's disease remains controversial. The authors studied the association of years of schooling with the risk for incident dementia and Alzheimer's disease by using pooled data from four European population-based follow-up studies. Dementia cases were identified in a two-stage procedure that included a detailed diagnostic assessment of screen-positive subjects. ⋯ Compared with women with a high level of education, those with low and middle levels of education had 4.3 (95% confidence interval: 1.5, 11.9) and 2.6 (95% confidence interval: 1.0, 7.1) times increased risks, respectively, for Alzheimer's disease. The risk estimates for men were close to 1.0. Finding an association of education with Alzheimer's disease for women only raises the possibility that unmeasured confounding explains the previously reported increased risk for Alzheimer's disease for persons with low levels of education.
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The authors used 1985-1990 Illinois' vital records to determine the low birth weight components of infants delivered to US-born Black women, Caribbean-born Black women, and US-born White women. The moderately low birth weight rate (1,500-2,499 g) was 10% for infants with US-born Black mothers (n = 67,357) and 6% for infants with Caribbean-born mothers (n = 2,265) compared with 4% for infants with US-born White mothers (n = 34,124); the relative risk equaled 2.7 (95% confidence interval (CI): 2.5, 2.8) and 1.7 (95% CI: 1.4, 2.0), respectively. ⋯ Among the lowest risk mothers, the relative risk of moderately low birth weight for infants with US-born Black mothers and Caribbean-born mothers (compared with US-born White mothers) was 2.7 (95% CI: 2.1, 3.4) and 1.2 (95% CI: 0.4, 3.1), respectively; the relative risk of very low birth weight for infants with US-born Black mothers and Caribbean-born mothers was 6.7 (95% CI: 3.8, 12) and 4.2 (95% CI: 1.0, 18), respectively. The authors conclude that Caribbean-born women and US-born Black women have disparate moderate rates but equivalent very low birth weight rates.