Socio-Environmental Crises and Cognitive Ageing : Exploring the Cognitive Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic and Climate Crises on Older Adults' Memory and Verbal Fluency

Abstract

Socio-environmental crises such as the ones induced by the COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing climate change significantly impact individual health, not only but especially at older ages. While the health effects of COVID-19 lockdowns and the cardiovascular risks posed by climate change (especially heat waves) in the older population have been studied, their differential impacts on cognitive functioning in later life remain less understood, despite their relevance for the sociology of age(ing). This article thus explores the “cognitive impact” of socio-environmental crises by addressing two questions: (1) How does cognitive functioning change from the prepandemic to the postlockdown phase, and how does this compare with baseline cognitive changes? (2) How are average and peak summer temperatures linked to cognitive change over a 2-year period? Using longitudinal data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), we analysed cognitive changes in a sample of adults aged 50+ in Germany from 2004 to 2022. Random effects change score analysis focused on two cognitive measures: memory and verbal fluency. Results show that COVID-19–related cognitive decline in memory is significantly greater than baseline change rates of cognitive decline, but no such effect was observed for verbal fluency. Higher average summer temperatures are associated with faster declines in memory and verbal fluency, while peak summer temperatures are not correlated with cognitive functioning. While the social and biological mechanisms behind such changes still need to be disentangled scientifically, the sociopolitical need for action during times of polycrises is unquestionable.