Beyond Fear of Crime: Exploring the True Worries of Older Adults in the Context of Fear of Crime and Vulnerability in Sweden.

UNLABELLED: The current study examines the relative importance of fear of crime and its three aspects-affective, behavioral, and cognitive-in relation to frailty (daily activities, health problems, psychosocial functioning), news consumption, trust in neighborhood, and perceptions of rising crime among older adults in a mid-sized Swedish municipality. Using logistic regression, we analyzed data from a subsample of 336 participants from a Swedish cross-sectional study of adults aged 65 and older (mean age = 76.62; age range = 64 to 106 years). Contrary to the common portrayal of older adults as highly fearful of crime, our findings reveal that their primary worries are more closely linked to health problems, social isolation, and other personal vulnerabilities than to fear of crime. Trust in the neighborhood is associated with lower levels of the affective and behavioral aspects of fear of crime. Conversely, perceptions of rising crime are positively related to the affective and behavioral aspects of fear. Health problems and problems in psychosocial functioning are positively linked to the affective aspect. Further, problems in psychosocial functioning are positively related to the behavioral aspect. Overall, while crime is a worry, it is overshadowed by more immediate health and social issues. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s10610-025-09631-2.