Perceived neighborhood safety and aesthetic quality are associated with cognitive change over time

Identifying factors that contribute to cognitive decline is critical to the design of interventions to help older adults maintain independence. Although several studies have investigated associations between neighborhood characteristics and cognitive decline, these studies have not properly considered practice‐related cognitive gains (i.e., retest effects), which may hamper accurate estimation of aging‐related cognitive decline over time. This study examined whether subjective neighborhood characteristics were associated with longitudinal changes in processing speed, an early marker of cognitive aging and impairment, after accounting for retest effects.