Department of Biobehavioral Health, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA.
Center for Healthy Aging, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA.
Aging Ment Health. 2024 Nov;28(11):1502-1510. doi: 10.1080/13607863.2024.2351923. Epub 2024 May 13.
Perceived discrimination is associated with racial cognitive health disparities. Links between discrimination and cognitive performance, like working memory, in everyday settings (i.e. ambulatory performance) require investigation. Depressive symptoms may be a mechanism through which discrimination relates to ambulatory working memory.
Discrimination, retrospective and momentary depressive symptoms/mood, and aggregated and momentary working memory performance among older Black and White adults were examined within the Einstein Aging Study.
Racially stratified analyses revealed that discrimination did not relate to Black or White adults' ambulatory working memory. Among Black adults, however, more frequent discrimination was associated with greater retrospectively reported depressive symptoms, which related to more working memory errors across two weeks (indirect effect < 0.05). This path was not significant among White adults. Links between discrimination and momentary working memory were not explained by momentary reports of depressed mood for Black or White adults.
Depressive symptoms may play an important role in the link between discrimination and ambulatory working memory among Black adults across extended measurements, but not at the momentary level. Future research should address ambulatory cognition and momentary reports of discrimination and depression to better understand how to minimize cognitive health disparities associated with discrimination.
感知到的歧视与种族认知健康差距有关。需要研究歧视与认知表现（如工作记忆）之间的联系，这些认知表现发生在日常环境中（即动态表现）。抑郁症状可能是歧视与动态工作记忆相关的一个机制。
在爱因斯坦老龄化研究中，对老年黑人和白人成年人的歧视、回顾性和即时抑郁症状/情绪以及综合和即时工作记忆表现进行了研究。
种族分层分析表明，歧视与黑人和白人成年人的动态工作记忆无关。然而，在黑人成年人中，更频繁的歧视与更多的回顾性抑郁症状相关，这与两周内更多的工作记忆错误相关（间接效应<0.05）。在白人成年人中，这一途径并不显著。在黑人或白人成年人中，歧视与即时工作记忆之间的联系不能用即时抑郁情绪报告来解释。
抑郁症状可能在黑人成年人中，在跨扩展测量的歧视与动态工作记忆之间的联系中发挥重要作用，但在即时水平上则不然。未来的研究应该关注动态认知和即时歧视和抑郁报告，以更好地理解如何最小化与歧视相关的认知健康差距。
