A recent study suggests that jobs involving significant spatial reasoning—such as determining taxi routes or navigating to hospitals—might be linked to reduced death rates from Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers from Mass General Brigham explored this idea by analyzing national data concerning the occupations of individuals who have passed away, examining the risk of Alzheimer’s-related mortality across 443 different professions. Their findings indicate that both taxi drivers and ambulance drivers experience a lower incidence of deaths attributed to Alzheimer’s compared to other job categories.
A recent study suggests that jobs involving significant spatial reasoning—such as determining taxi routes or navigating to hospitals—might be linked to reduced death rates from Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers from Mass General Brigham explored this idea by analyzing national data concerning the occupations of individuals who have passed away, examining the risk of Alzheimer’s-related mortality across 443 different professions. Their findings indicate that both taxi drivers and ambulance drivers experience a lower incidence of deaths attributed to Alzheimer’s compared to other job categories. Results are published in BMJ.
“The same brain regions that create cognitive spatial maps—essential for navigating our surroundings—are also connected to the development of Alzheimer’s disease,” explained lead author Vishal Patel, MD, MPH, a resident physician in the Surgery Department at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. “We proposed that jobs like taxi driving and ambulance driving, which require immediate spatial and navigation skills, might correlate with lower rates of Alzheimer’s disease-related deaths than other jobs.”
Patel and colleagues at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital, founding members of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system, examined mortality data from the National Vital Statistics System for adults across 443 occupations from January 1, 2020, to December 31, 2022. The team also considered demographic details such as age, gender, race, ethnicity, and education levels, alongside the primary occupation a person held during their working life.
Out of nearly 9 million participants from various professions included in the study, 3.88% (348,328 individuals) succumbed to Alzheimer’s disease. Among taxi drivers, 1.03% (171 out of 16,658) died from Alzheimer’s, while the figure for ambulance drivers stood at 0.74% (10 out of 1,348). After adjustment, both ambulance drivers (0.91%) and taxi drivers (1.03%) exhibited the lowest rates of Alzheimer’s deaths among all studied occupations. In contrast, other transportation roles that follow set routes, like bus drivers (3.11%) or aircraft pilots (4.57%), did not show similar trends, indicating they rely less on immediate spatial and navigation skills. Additionally, this pattern was not observed for other dementia types.
“These results point to the possibility that neurological modifications in the hippocampus or other areas of the brain among taxi and ambulance drivers may explain their lower rates of Alzheimer’s disease,” stated senior author Anupam B. Jena, MD, PhD, a physician in the Medicine Department at Massachusetts General Hospital.
The authors emphasize that their study is observational, thus firm conclusions about cause and effect cannot be established. They also acknowledge some limitations, including the possibility that those at a higher risk for Alzheimer’s may be less inclined to enter or stay in memory-intensive driving jobs like taxi and ambulance driving. However, they believe this is improbable, as symptoms of Alzheimer’s typically emerge after working age.
“We consider these findings as suggestive rather than definitive,” noted Jena. “Nonetheless, they highlight the need to evaluate how various professions could impact Alzheimer’s disease mortality risk and whether cognitive activities might offer any preventive benefits.”
