{"doi":"10.1073/pnas.2321078121","title":"Effect of a cash transfer intervention on memory decline and dementia probability in older adults in rural South Africa","abstract":"Evidence on cash transfers as a population-level intervention to support healthy cognitive aging in low-income settings is sparse. We assessed the effect of a cash transfer intervention on cognitive aging outcomes in older South African adults. We leveraged the overlap in the sampling frames of a Phase 3 randomized cash transfer trial [HIV Prevention Trial Network (HPTN) 068, 2011-2015] and an aging cohort [Health and Aging in Africa: A Longitudinal Study of an INDEPTH Community (HAALSI), 2014-2022] in rural Mpumalanga Province, South Africa. In 2011/12, young women and their primary caregivers were randomly assigned 1:1 to receive a monthly cash transfer or control. In 2014/2015, 862 adults aged 40+ y living in trial households were enrolled in the HAALSI cohort, with cognitive data collected in three waves over 7 y. We estimated the impact of the intervention on rate of memory decline and dementia probability scores. Memory decline in the cash transfer arm was 0.03 SD units (95% CI: 0.002, 0.05) slower per year than in the control arm. Dementia probability scores were three percentage points lower in the cash transfer arm than the control arm (β = -0.03; 95% CI: -0.05, -0.001). Effects were consistent across subgroups. A modestly sized household cash transfer delivered over a short period in mid- to later-life led to a meaningful slowing of memory decline and reduction in dementia probability 7 y later. Cash transfer programs could help stem the tide of new dementia cases in economically vulnerable populations in the coming decades.","journal":"Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences","year":2024,"id":466425,"datarank":0.24141568686511508,"base_score":1.6094379124341003,"endowment":1.6094379124341003,"self_citation_contribution":0.24141568686511508,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.24141568686511508,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":4,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9325,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1011703,"name":"Erika T. Beidelman","orcid":"0000-0003-0702-2512","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":513794,"name":"Xiwei Chen","orcid":"0000-0003-1868-8387","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":443436,"name":"Chodziwadziwa Kabudula","orcid":"0000-0002-5867-0336","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":277332,"name":"Audrey Pettifor","orcid":"0000-0002-3387-0817","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1125396,"name":"Darina T. Bassil","orcid":"0000-0002-2251-0613","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":45777,"name":"Lisa Berkman","orcid":null,"position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":277340,"name":"Kathleen Kahn","orcid":"0000-0003-3339-3931","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":443314,"name":"Stephen Tollman","orcid":"0000-0003-0744-7588","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":264318,"name":"Lindsay C. Kobayashi","orcid":"0000-0003-2725-3107","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":433884,"name":"Molly Rosenberg","orcid":"0000-0001-6679-6791","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":41,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:04:54.606394Z","pmid":"39298474","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}