Incident traumatic experiences and poor financial well-being: A double hit for cognitive decline?

Traumatic experiences in older age may accelerate cognitive decline, especially when experienced alongside financial hardship.

In data from the Health and Retirement Study (2006-2020), we estimated linear mixed-effects models stratified by financial well-being to estimate the effect of incident traumatic experiences on memory decline, adjusted for childhood and adulthood sociodemographics.

In N = 3432 participants, incident traumatic experiences appeared associated with lower baseline memory score ( $\hat{\beta }$  = -0.015, 9 -0.053 to 0.023) and faster decline ( $\hat{\beta }$  = -0.007, 95% CI = -0.012 to --0.001). Observed associations were larger in those with worse financial well-being (baseline memory score: $\hat{\beta }$  = -0.070, 95% CI = -0.200 to 0.060; memory decline: $\hat{\beta }$  = -0.016, 95% CI = -0.033 to 0.001) versus better financial well-being (baseline memory score: $\hat{\beta }$  = -0.008, 95% CI = -0.047 to 0.031; memory decline: $\hat{\beta }$  =- 0.006, 95% CI = -0.012 to 0.000), but the confidence intervals for these estimates included values consistent with no association.

The cognitive impacts of incident traumatic events may be stronger for individuals with poor financial well-being. Future research should confirm our findings and evaluate underlying mechanisms.

Experiencing an incident trauma in older age predicted accelerated memory decline.This association was strongest for participants with worse financial well-being.Experiencing trauma alongside scarcity may be a double-hit for cognitive decline.