Who Might Be Most Vulnerable to the Health Effects of Home Foreclosure?
Susceptibility to home foreclosure might involve both compositional and contextual dimensions. Those with lower socioeconomic status and some ethnic minorities may have higher likelihood and severity of exposure, as well as potential challenges in securing stress-buffering resources. At the individual level, most of those who experience foreclosures will not exhibit adverse health effects [64]. Even in the face of extreme stressors, most people are sufficiently resilient to stressful events [65]. However, individual characteristics such as prior psychiatric or adverse health histories [30], poor coping skills [35],[66]–[68], low social support [35], neuroticism [69], low self-esteem [70], and highly valuing economic success [71] may heighten vulnerability. The macroeconomic context has had profound and far-ranging effects that might exacerbate foreclosure’s potential health effects. Unemployment in developed nations is at historic levels, and home prices show no immediate signs of rebo
