Psychosocial Factors Outweigh Short-Term Environmental Exposures in Subjective Cognitive Difficulties: A Causal AI Study

The study examined the relationship between short-term environmental exposures (weather, air pollution) and subjective cognitive difficulties among participants from 2018 to 2024. Researchers used advanced statistical methods including lagged-exposure analyses and machine learning. While some environmental factors showed associations with cognitive outcomes, most of these associations substantially weakened after accounting for temporal variation within individual locations. Conversely, mental health burden, loneliness, and impaired social functioning remained consistently associated with subjective cognitive difficulties. Similar findings were confirmed by an independent validation study. The findings suggest that observed environmental associations may reflect broader geographic and contextual differences rather than true short-term environmental effects.