Abstract
Due to the poor functioning in daily living activities, community-dwelling older adults spend more time in their neighborhood environment. The perceived neighborhood environment is crucial to their quality of life (QoL). To explore the complex influences of perceived neighborhood environment on QoL, a questionnaire was designed to measure their perception of each factor of neighborhood environment and each domain of QoL. Based on collected data, the reliability test was applied to revise the questionnaire. Multiple linear regression (MLR) and structural equation modeling (SEM) were adopted to hypothesize and test the integrated model for community-dwelling older adults. The results show that community-dwelling older adults’ perceptions of neighbor support, facilities related to physical exercise and recreation, and accessibility to facilities impact their overall QoL with diverse coefficients of 0.437, 0.312, and 0.295, respectively; neighbor support (0.207) on physical health; sidewalk condition (0.134), natural environment (0.260), and facilities related to daily life (0.165) on psychological health; and neighbor support (0.298), facilities related to daily life (0.206), and design-related safety (0.225) on social relationship. This revealed that perceptions of neighborhood environment have diverse impacts on their QoL. This study can provide targeted retrofit strategies for communities to enhance QoL of community-dwelling older adults efficiently.
Highlights
In recent years, the severity of the problem of society aging has been increasing worldwide.Globally, adults over 60 are expected to grow to more than 2 billion by 2050 [1]
The facility aspect of neighborhood environment means facilities providing the essential services for older adults, containing public transport (E7), outdoor public spaces (E8), facilities related to health and security (E9), facilities related to physical exercise and recreation (E10), facilities related to daily life (E11), and accessibility to facilities (E12)
Among factors of the facility aspect, only facilities related to physical exercise and recreation, facilities related to daily life, and accessibility to facilities affect the quality of life (QoL) of community-dwelling older adults significantly
Summary
The severity of the problem of society aging has been increasing worldwide. Adults over 60 are expected to grow to more than 2 billion by 2050 [1]. Chinese older adults will reach 0.5 billion by 2050, which will account for 36.5% of the population of China. The government must cope with this severe social issue, i.e., how to support these older adults successfully. Moving to professional care facilities, such as nursing homes, or aging in their own communities by receiving help from family members are traditional and common situations for older adults [2]
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