A Scoping Review of Neighborhoods and Cognitive Health Disparities Among US Midlife and Older Adults.

The neighborhood environment may be an important determinant of racial/ethnic disparities in cognitive function. To understand how neighborhoods are linked to cognition across racial/ethnic groups, this scoping review organizes research investigating relationships between multiple neighborhood domains and cognitive function in diverse samples of US midlife and older adults. PubMed/MEDLINE, Web of Science, and CAHL were used to extract quantitative disparities-focused studies ( = 17) that included US adults ages 50+, racial/ethnic minoritized populations, cognitive dependent variable(s), and neighborhood-level independent variable(s) published from January 2010 to October 2021. Studies demonstrate variation within and between racial/ethnic groups in how neighborhood factors are associated with cognition. Economically and socially advantaged neighborhoods were associated with better cognition. Findings were mixed for built and neighborhood composition measures. More research with greater racial/ethnic representation is needed to disentangle which aspects of the neighborhood are most salient for specific cognitive function domains across diverse populations.