Identifying Pathways of Physiological Deterioration to Understand Racial Disparities in Cognitive Status: A 4‐way Mediation‐Interaction Decomposition Analysis

Exposure to interpersonal and structural racism may increase the risk of adverse cognitive aging in racialized groups. Physiological deterioration may lie on the causal pathway leading racism to cognitive aging, but this potential mediating role has never been investigated. We quantified the extent to which the racial disparity (a proxy measure of exposure to racism) in cognitive status was mediated through physiological biomarkers of inflammation, glucose homeostasis, cholesterol ratios, and renal functioning.