Neighborhood effects for aging in place: a transdisciplinary framework toward health-promoting settings

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe premise of promoting aging in place is that neighborhoods can enhance or protect older adults’ health. But progress toward health-promoting settings has been slow in practice given limited understanding of causal pathways to facilitate targeted interventions in the built and social environment of neighborhoods. This article compares the effects of neighborhood built and social environment on older adults’ physical and psychosocial health by reviewing relevant articles from three interdisciplinary databases. With reference to an Urban Space Framework, 51 relevant articles were analyzed in four categories, each of which compares the significance of two pairs of relationships in the environment and health nexus. Whereas neighborhood social environment has more significant relationship with older adults’ psychosocial health, the findings for neighborhood built environment are mixed. A resultant transdisciplinary framework links the urban design of neighborhoods to older adults’ health via neighborhood social environment and older adults’ psychosocial health, given fulfillment of macro level health prerequisites. The article concludes with a discussion on the utility of the framework to facilitate research on micro level causal pathways from neighborhood built environment to older adults’ health.