TY - JOUR T1 - The Foreclosure Crisis, Community Change, and the Cognitive Health of Older Adults JF - The Journals of Gerontology: Series B Y1 - 2021 A1 - Esther M Friedman A1 - Houle, Jason A1 - Kathleen A. Cagney A1 - Mary E Slaughter A1 - Regina A Shih KW - Cognitive decline KW - Community physical disorder KW - Community social cohesion KW - Foreclosures AB - Objectives While home foreclosures are often thought of as a household-level event, the consequences may be far-reaching, and spill over to the broader community. Older adults, in particular, could be affected by the spiral of community changes that result from foreclosures, but we know very little about how the foreclosure crisis is related to older adult health, in particular cognition. Method This paper uses growth curve models and data from the Health and Retirement Study matched to Census and county-level foreclosure data to examine whether community foreclosures are related to older adults’ cognitive health and the mechanisms responsible. Results We find that higher rates of county-level foreclosures are associated with a faster decline in individual cognition at older ages. Although we examined an extensive number of individual and community mechanisms, including individual housing wealth and depressive symptoms, community structural factors, social factors, and perceptions of physical disorder and cohesion, none of the mechanisms examined here explained this relationship. Discussion This study shows that the adverse consequences of home foreclosures spill over to the local community, with implications for the cognitive health of older adults VL - 76 IS - 5 ER -