A clearer picture of who is developing dementia<\/p>\n
Dementia currently affects more than 57 million people worldwide, with previous research projecting prevalence to reach approximately 150 million by 2050. Yet much of what is known about dementia has historically come from high-income countries, despite some of the greatest future increases being expected in lower-resource settings.<\/p>\n
The new research focuses specifically on incidence – the rate at which people develop dementia or the number of new cases per year – rather than prevalence, which measures the total number of people living with the condition at a given time.<\/p>\n
Understanding incidence is critical for governments and health systems because it helps anticipate future demand for diagnosis, clinical care and support services, while informing where prevention efforts may have the greatest impact.<\/p>\n
Lead author Dr Ashleigh Vella, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at CHeBA, said the findings provided an important new benchmark for understanding the changing global dementia landscape.<\/p>\n
“For the first time, we can compare dementia incidence across a geographically diverse group of populations using the same statistical approach, giving us a clearer picture of where and among whom new cases are occurring.<\/p>\n
“What stands out is that dementia incidence is not evenly distributed. We see higher rates among women and in low- and middle-income countries.<\/p>\n
“Understanding these differences is critical if we are to develop dementia prevention, diagnosis and care strategies that respond to the populations facing the greatest future risk.”<\/p>\n
CHeBA Co-Director, co-author and 2026 Senior Australian of the Year Prof. Henry Brodaty said the findings reinforced the urgency of investing in dementia prevention.<\/p>\n
“Twenty-four million new cases of dementia every year would place enormous pressure on individuals, families, health systems and economies around the world.<\/p>\n
“Population ageing means we cannot simply wait for people to develop dementia and then respond. We need to act across the spectrum – from reducing modifiable risk factors and identifying people at risk earlier, through to improving diagnosis, treatment and care.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A clearer picture of who is developing dementia Dementia currently affects more than 57 million people worldwide, with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":926532,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[64,63,137],"class_list":["post-926531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=926531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926531\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/926532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=926531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=926531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=926531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}