A recent study from Rutgers Health indicates that internalizing stress may be a significant risk factor for cognitive decline among older Chinese Americans. The research, published in The Journal of Prevention of Alzheimer’s Disease by the Rutgers Institute for Health, Health Care Policy and Aging Research, analyzed various risk and resilience factors related to memory decline in Chinese adults over 60.
The researchers selected this group because older Chinese Americans are often underrepresented in studies on brain aging. “With the number of older Asian Americans growing significantly, it’s vital to better understand the risk factors of memory decline in this understudied population,” said Michelle Chen, lead author of the study and core member at the Center for Healthy Aging Research within the Rutgers Institute for Health, Health Care Policy and Aging Research.
The study highlights how cultural stereotypes such as the model minority myth—which depicts Asian Americans as uniformly successful and healthy—can uniquely affect mental health. According to Chen and her colleagues, these individuals may face stress related to language and cultural barriers. The researchers also noted that other immigrant groups in the U.S. might encounter similar challenges.
“Stress and hopelessness may go unnoticed in aging populations, yet they play a critical role in how the brain ages,” said Chen, who is also an assistant professor of neurology at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. “Because these feelings are modifiable, our goal is for this research to inform culturally sensitive stress-reduction interventions to mitigate these feelings in older adults.”
The team utilized data from the Population Study of ChINese Elderly (PINE), recognized as the largest community-based cohort study on older Chinese Americans. This project included interviews with more than 1,500 participants living in Chicago between 2011 and 2017. The focus was on three sociobehavioral factors: internalized stress, neighborhood or community cohesion, and external stress alleviation.
Findings revealed that internalizing stress—characterized by hopelessness or absorbing stressful experiences—was strongly linked to memory decline across multiple assessments during the PINE study period. In contrast, neither community cohesion nor efforts to alleviate external stress showed an association with declining memory function over time.
The research received support from the Rutgers-NYU Resource Center for Alzheimer’s and Dementia Research in Asian and Pacific Americans, co-led by William Hu of Rutgers Institute for Health and Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. Additional authors include Yiming Ma, Charu Verma, Stephanie Bergren, and William Hu from Rutgers Institute for Health.
