Where does the neighborhood go? Trust, social engagement, and health among older adults in Baltimore City

Abstract

Trust is often cited as a necessary predecessor of social engagement, and a public-health good. We question those suppositions through analysis of the life histories of lower-income older adults aging in place in Baltimore. These people desired to continue living independently, but also expressed a complex mix of trust and mistrust in their neighbors, neighborhoods, and broader environments. This was the product of interrelated processes of multilevel physical and social changes over time and space – and, we argue, often featured a “healthy mistrust” that pushed participants to pursue personally meaningful forms of social engagement, whether new or continued.

Beyond the Individual: Evidence Linking Neighborhood Trust and Social Isolation Among Community-Dwelling Older Adults

“…For example, in Klinenberg's (2002) study, many of the African American older adults who died due to excessive heat lived in neighborhoods with high violent crime rates, and further trust in neighbors may have been misplaced. As Garoon et al (2016) pointed out in their study, "mistrust and disengagement can be justifiable and productive adaptive responses to socially challenging experiences and environments" (p. 65). A community trust intervention would only work when neighborhood safety is guaranteed.…”

“…Theorists in the tradition of Coleman (1988) and Putnam (1995) consider trust to be an essential element of social capital, whereas theorists in the tradition of Bourdieu (1986) argue that trust is an antecedent of social capital (Carpiano, 2006). Empirically, a body of literature has provided evidence suggesting that trust is a distinct concept from the network aspect of social capital (Carpiano & Fitterer, 2014;Garoon, Engelman, Gitlin, & Szanton, 2016;Moore et al, 2011). For example, analyzing the 2008 Canadian GSS data, Carpiano and Fitterer (2014) found that generalized trust and trust of neighbors were modestly associated with measures of several domains of network-based social capital.…”

‘Overjoyed that I can go outside’: Using walking interviews to learn about the lived experience and meaning of neighbourhood for people living with dementia

“…Ehn (1996) has shown that getting to know the neighbours, or to participate in social activities with them, was often not deemed a social necessity for many Swedish citizens, so this may indicate a broader cultural trait. However, research on the value of neighbouring in other countries (Garoon, Engelman, Gitlin, & Szanton, 2016;Lapierre & Keating, 2013) points to its importance for people whose lives are focused at a local level. Hence, the creation of more meeting places in the neighbourhood could be beneficial for all older people, not only those people with dementia.…”

Small Houses, Big Community: Tiny Housers’ Desire for More Cohesive and Collaborative Communities

“…Like a large segment of the US population, tiny housers are increasingly living in neighborhoods highly segregated by race, income, and social class (Thal 2017). Trust in communities and neighborly relations, especially in urban and suburban settings, has declined (Garoon et al 2016;Yeo and Green 2017), and average network sizes, while remaining stable across different age groups (Smith et al 2018), have also shrunk over the past few decades. Social isolation remains common (Klinenberg 2018), especially among older individuals who are at higher risk due to "living alone, being widowed, poor health, psychological distress, economic deprivation, poor social skills, and cognitive impairment" (Parigi and Henson 2014).…”