Scott R. Beach was awarded an NIH grant to study financial exploitation of older adults

Scott R. Beach has been awarded a five-year $3.2 million grant from the National Institute on Aging, a division of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH). The study will explore risk factors for financial frauds and scams in 700 adults age 60 and older. Financial exploitation is an increasing threat to the economic security of older adults. The study will explore cognitive decline, financial skills deficits and psychosocial factors as potential pathways to financial exploitation, and will potentially contribute to the development of interventions to heighten awareness and minimize risk.

Beach is the interim director of the University Center for Social and Urban Research and has a secondary appointment in the Department of Psychology. A Pitt faculty member since 1997, he has scholarly interests in the areas of aging and caregiver stress, elder abuse, and technology and aging. Beach has published his findings in these areas in such noted publications as the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), The Gerontologist and the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.