Higher early-life cognitive ability is associated with decreased mortality risk, a relation reported in all nine reviewed studies and partly mediated by health behaviors¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study (2 entries) · review r2 · q2–q3
Currency · newest study 2012 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person · overdue for a recheck since 2017: baselines and conditions change

Subclaims¶

Reading the evidence codes

q is the design tier, i the impact, n the sample, and the kind with its r the rigour judged within that kind: what each code means.

This claim: no standardized effect is recorded in observations/ for it yet, so no benchmark reading is possible.

q3 i? All nine studies reviewed by Batty et al. (2007) reported that higher early-life cognitive ability was associated with decreased mortality risk. → Salthouse 2012 q2 i? Higher cognitive ability is associated with better medication adherence, and controlling health behaviors reduces the cognition-mortality relation. → Salthouse 2012 (2)

Evidence¶

Salthouse 2012¶

Salthouse, T. (2012). Consequences of Age-Related Cognitive Declines. Annual Review of Psychology, 63, 201-226. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-120710-100328

q3 · i? · review · r2

Review of cognitive epidemiology. The review reports that Batty et al. (2007) "described nine studies" of early-life cognition and later mortality, in all of which higher cognitive ability predicted decreased mortality risk, including a dose-response pattern in nearly one million Swedish men.

"All nine studies reported that higher levels of cognitive ability were associated with decreased risk of mortality"

Salthouse 2012 (2)¶

Salthouse, T. (2012). Consequences of Age-Related Cognitive Declines. Annual Review of Psychology, 63, 201-226. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-120710-100328

q2 · i? · review · r2

Review of hypothesized mechanisms for cognition-mortality relations. The review reports medication-adherence findings (Deary et al. 2009; Stilley et al.) and that controlling health behaviors "reduced the relation between cognitive ability and mortality", consistent with a healthy-lifestyle mediator.

"Sabia et al. (2010) found that controlling health variables such as smoking, alcoholic consumption, fruit and vegetable consumption, and hours of physical exercise reduced the relation between cognitive ability and mortality"

Discussion¶

Learner Variables¶

General Cognitive Ability — predictor: learners who differ on it differ in outcomes

Poverty predicts children's cortisol and executive function, partially mediated by parental sensitive caregiving — related

Page metadata

Field	Value
`type`	`claim`
`id`	`cognitive-ability-mortality-risk`
`title`	`Higher early-life cognitive ability is associated with decreased mortality risk, a relation reported in all nine reviewed studies and partly mediated by health behaviors`
`description`	`Higher early-life cognitive ability is associated with decreased mortality risk, a relation reported in all nine reviewed studies and partly mediated by health behaviors`
`status`	`review`
`evidence_strength`	`moderate`
`newest_evidence`	`2012`
`recheck_by`	`2017`
`generated`	by `process:wiki-ingest` on `2026-10-17`
`trust`	unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content
`sources`	2 — `salthouse-2012`, `salthouse-2012-2`

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