SwissDEM – Community-dwelling sample, Ticino and Zurich

SwissDEM is the first epidemiological study on dementia prevalence, burden, and its determinants among older adults in Ticino, Switzerland, complemented with comparative data collected in the Canton of Zurich. Funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF, grant no. 320030_184794; PI: Prof. Emiliano Albanese, Institute of Public Health, Università della Svizzera italiana), the study was a multi-site, one-phase, population-based, cross-sectional survey of adults aged 65 and older, randomly sampled through the Swiss Federal Office of Statistics with age- and sex-stratification. Assessments cover cognitive function (10/66 short dementia diagnostic schedule, CSI-D), mood and affective symptoms (EURO-D), functional status, social networks, caregiving arrangements, and socioeconomic circumstances, collected via structured dyadic interviews with participants and informants.