Does Psychological Resilience Mediate the Relationship between Neighborhood Characteristics and Cognitive Change?

Background and Purpose: Although prior research has linked neighborhood characteristics to cognitive health in later life, the mechanisms underlying these associations remain less well understood. Psychological resilience, defined as an individual’s capacity to adapt to adversity, has emerged as a protective factor for health outcomes among older adults facing various life challenges, including environmental stressors. Drawing on the theoretical framework of resilience, this study examined whether psychological resilience mediates the relationship between perceived neighborhood environments (i.e., neighborhood disorder and cohesion) and cognitive health in later life.

Methods: Data were drawn from the 2006-2016 Health and Retirement Study Leave Behind Questionnaire and RAND Data File, including 12,070 respondents aged 51 and older at baseline. Perceived neighborhood characteristics were measured based on two domains: neighborhood disorder and neighborhood cohesion, each measured by four 7-point Likert-scale items referring to areas within a mile or a 20-minute walk from the respondent’s home. Psychological resilience was measured using a previously established simplified resilience score (range = 0-12). Cognitive functioning was assessed using three tests: serial 7’s test, total word recall, and backwards counting, with a combined score ranging from 0 to 27. Structural equation modeling with latent growth curve analysis was used to examine the mediating effects of psychological resilience in the relationship between neighborhood environment and both baseline cognitive functioning and cognitive change over time, adjusting for sociodemographic and health-related covariates.

Results: Model fit indices indicated good fit (CFI > 0.95, TLI > 0.95, RMSEA < 0.06, SRMR < 0.08). At baseline, greater neighborhood disorder was associated with lower baseline cognitive functioning (β = -0.01, p < .05), with psychological resilience partially mediating this association (indirect effect = -0.004, p < .001). Specifically, participants who perceived higher levels of neighborhood disorder reported lower psychological resilience, which in turn was associated with lower cognitive functioning. In contrast, neighborhood cohesion was positively associated with psychological resilience (β = 0.43, p < .001), and resilience was associated with higher cognitive functioning (β = 0.02, p < .001). However, neighborhood cohesion itself was not directly linked to baseline cognitive functioning. Additionally, neither neighborhood cohesion nor disorder—directly or indirectly—was related to cognitive change over time.

Conclusions and Implications: These findings highlight psychological resilience as the mechanism linking neighborhood disorder to cognitive health in older adulthood. Enhancing resilience may help buffer against the negative impacts of disordered neighborhood environments on cognitive functioning. Thus, social work interventions and policies aiming to reduce neighborhood disorder and promote individual psychological resilience may be beneficial for preserving cognitive health in later life. Given the lack of a direct association between neighborhood cohesion and cognitive functioning, future research should explore potential interactive effects between cohesion and psychological resilience to better understand their joint influence on cognitive aging.