University of Maryland EDU

Justin Nixon Measuring the success of a public program can get complicated when the data only tells part of the story. School of Public Policy graduate student Justin Nixon encountered that challenge this summer as a fellow with the Montgomery County Council. The 10-week fellowship gives graduate students the opportunity to work alongside local decision makers on policy issues affecting the county.

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Objectives: The apolipoprotein E (APOE) ε4 allele is linked to increased risk of Alzheimer's disease and cognitive decline. While educational attainment appears to mitigate this risk, it is not a direct measure of the early-life environment. This study examined whether childhood exposure to well- versus poorly resourced educational contexts modified the association between APOE ε4 and cognitive decline, independent of parent and respondent educational attainment.

Type: Journal Articles Author(s): Katrina Walsemann Mateo P. Farina Heide Jackson Jennifer A. Ailshire July 1, 2026 Chronic, low-grade inflammation is a key biological mechanism linking early-life adversity to morbidity and disability in later adulthood. Although educational attainment has been consistently associated with lower inflammation, the role of early educational environments remains understudied.

January 12, 2026 Introduction: Education is a key predictor of cognitive impairment, yet most research focuses on educational attainment rather than educational quality as an early-life determinant. Methods: We linked data from the 2000-2020 Health and Retirement Study to historical records on state public education systems.

Type: Journal Articles Author(s): Katrina Walsemann Emily Abbruzzi Pallavi Tyagi Heidi Jackson Jennifer A. Ailshire June 18, 2025 I. Rationale for Measuring State Education Contexts In the United States, educational attainment increased over the 20th century,1 while variation in state and federal investment in public education led to substantial differences in the quality and context of schooling across time and place. Yet data on education quality and context prior to 1975 remain limited.

July 14, 2025 There is growing interest in understanding how exposure to education contexts and quality shapes wellbeing, particularly in later life. Although public investment in education expanded significantly during much of the 20th century, electronic data on U.S. public education systems before 1975 remain limited.

We examine if the relationship between apolipoprotein E (APOE) ε4 and cognitive decline and dementia onset differs by sex in non‐Hispanic White and Black respondents from the Health and Retirement Study. We used race‐stratified linear mixed models to estimate cognitive decline and Cox proportional hazards models to estimate time to dementia onset. Sex differences were estimated using interaction terms.

October 17, 2024 Although there is robust evidence that socioeconomic position influences later-life cognitive function, two issues limit knowledge regarding the nature and magnitude of these relationships and potential policy interventions. First, most social science research tends to treat cognition as a unitary concept despite evidence that cognitive outcomes are not interchangeable.