Formal volunteering, informal volunteering and cognitive function among Chinese older adults

Abstract Background: While the benefits of volunteering have been well-documented in the current literature, it does not tend to distinguish between various types of volunteering activities and the association between volunteering and cognitive function among Chinese older adults remains unclear. This study aims to examine association of volunteering and cognitive function among Chinese older adults and identify whether volunteering can be an effective intervention for dementia. Method: The 2018 China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) data were used for analysis. The generalized linear regression models are used to estimate the associations between volunteering type and cognitive function among Chinese older adults aged 60 and above (N=2370). Also, this study replaced the dependent variable to test the robustness of the regression results. Results: Informal volunteering does not significantly affect the cognitive function of Chinese older adults, while formal volunteering has a significant positive effect on Chinese older adults’ cognitive function. These findings are robust after replacing the dependent variable. Conclusions: This study provides evidence that formal volunteering can improve cognitive function among Chinese older adults, whereas informal volunteering can not, indicating that formal volunteering can be en effective intervention to protect against the decline of cognitive function. Therefore, formal volunteering should be incorporated into behavioral health intervention promgrams to help reduce the prevalence of cognitive impairment among Chinese older adults.