Participatory and Receptive Arts Engagement in Older Adults: Associations with Cognition Over a Seven-Year Period

Figures & data

Figure 1. Flow diagram showing the number of participants eligible for and included in the two analytical samples.

Figure 2. Average raw cognition scores across the study period. Standard deviations are shown with light blue error bars. Total possible scores range from 0 to 100, as they are average of the percent of maximum possible scores on the three relevant tests (memory: immediate recall, delayed recall, digit ordering; EF/language: similarities, letter fluency, category fluency).

Table 1. Characteristics of the samples for each outcome at baseline.

	Memory (N = 3,245)	EF/language (N = 2,926)
	Proportion
Participatory arts engagement
None	39%	38%
Low	21%	21%
Moderate	18%	19%
High	22%	22%
Receptive arts engagement
None	29%	29%
Low	41%	41%
Moderate	24%	24%
High	6%	6%
Age
63–64 years	67%	68%
65–67 years	33%	32%
Gender
Men	47%	47%
Women	53%	53%
Marital status
Married	79%	79%
Unmarried	21%	21%
Highest education
High school or less	52%	52%
Some college	15%	15%
Undergraduate	15%	15%
Postgraduate	18%	18%
Employment status
Employed	47%	46%
Unemployed	10%	11%
Retired	43%	43%
Household income
$0–$36,000	20%	20%
$36,001–$57,000	27%	27%
$57,001–$91,000	26%	26%
≥$91,001	27%	27%
Parental education
High school or less	85%	85%
College or above	15%	15%

Notes: Not all participants were randomly selected for all cognitive tests in each year, so different subsamples who completed sufficient tests of memory and executive function (EF)/language were included. Low engagement is 1–4 hours per month, moderate engagement 5–12 hours, and high engagement ≥13 hours per month.

Table 2. Associations between arts engagement and the two cognition outcomes using inverse probability of treatment weighting.

	Memory (N = 3,245)				EF/language (N = 2,926)
	Participatory arts		Receptive arts		Participatory arts		Receptive arts
	ATE	95% CI	ATE	95% CI	ATE	95% CI	ATE	95% CI
None	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Low	0.03	−0.05 to 0.12	0.09	0.01 to 0.17	0.08	0.001 to 0.15	0.10	0.02 to 0.17
Moderate	0.08	−0.01 to 0.17	0.11	0.01 to 0.20	0.07	−0.01 to 0.15	0.02	−0.08 to 0.11
High	−0.01	−0.10 to 0.08	−0.02	−0.17 to 0.13	0.03	−0.05 to 0.12	0.07	−0.08 to 0.22

Notes: ATE: average treatment effect. CI: confidence intervals. For both participatory and receptive arts engagement, the control (reference) group was no engagement. Memory and EF/language were standardized, so ATEs are in standard deviation units. Low engagement is 1–4 hours per month, moderate engagement 5–12 hours, and high engagement ≥13 hours per month. Bold text indicates 95% CIs do not include 0.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS) website at https://www.ssc.wisc.edu/wlsresearch/data/.