Tag: cohort

Increased dementia risk for those who are overweight or obese

Yuxian Ma, Olesya Ajnakina, Andrew Steptoe and Dorina Cadar

Dementia is a major health challenge that could steal away the opportunity for successful ageing of the population. A priority is to identify lifestyle factors that may reduce the risk of dementia, or even prevent it. The modifiable risk factors for vascular diseases — such as smoking, excessive alcohol intake, lack of physical activity, low intake of antioxidants and high intake of saturated fats — are receiving greater attention in this area because of their association with cognitive impairment and dementia in older people.

Obesity, which is linked to lifestyle behaviours, is an important modifiable risk factor. In our recent study carried out at the UCL Department of Behavioural Science and Health, we found that being overweight or obese was associated with a greater risk of developing dementia.

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The relevance of a local cohort: the case for generalisability over representativeness

Eleonora Uphoff, Neil Small, Rosie McEachan and Kate Pickett

For some years, our research has been based in the city of Bradford in northern England. We are often asked to justify our research setting. There seems to be a concern that a cohort population that is not representative of the nation as a whole or of the ‘average person’ cannot produce valuable insights beyond its local setting.

While such concerns are not new, they now seem more present, perhaps due to the rise of Big Data or the increased sharing of and access to data from national surveys and cohorts. Do these reservations represent a push for representativeness and generalisability in epidemiology? If so, this might come at the expense of research aiming to paint a more detailed picture of population health.

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