Reduced community-level social cohesion is associated with higher risk for financial exploitation

Understanding the psychosocial and community risk factors associated with financial exploitation is essential in developing prevention strategies. Although previous work has identified factors related to increased risk such as poor financial literacy, cognitive decline, and worse mental health, less is known about social factors, particularly those tied to our community and how they interact with our ability to form meaningful relationships.

To investigate this issue, we used a previously published national sample of U.S. adults aged 20 to 94 (N = 886). We used self-reported zip code data coupled with the US Census data to reconstruct community-level indicators of social cohesion (i.e. neighborhood disorder, neighborhood disadvantage, residential instability).

We found that reduced community-level social cohesion was associated with increased risk for financial exploitation. In addition, our exploratory analyses indicated that community-level indicators of social cohesion moderated the association between subjective cognitive decline and risk of financial exploitation. Specifically, individuals with higher levels of subjective cognitive decline residing in areas with low residential instability appeared to have lower risk of financial exploitation.

These results highlight how community-level factors contribute to risk for financial exploitation, which may provide a foundation for future work aimed at improving prevention strategies and public policy.