Abstract
Government departments and scholars have focused on promoting health care for older adults in response to population aging and the annual increase in the number of older adults. Old age does not necessarily involve rapid health decline, fragility, or senility. Therefore, active aging among older adults has become a major consideration worldwide. The effect of exercise participation and social support on active aging warrants investigation. This study proposes a conceptual model for understanding the effects of exercise participation and social support on active aging among older adults. Exercise participation, social support, and health literacy were integrated to hypothesize a theoretical model of active aging among older adults. Furthermore, the moderating role of health literacy in the relationship between exercise participation, social support, and active aging was analyzed. Questionnaires were administered to respondents from Northern Taiwan during face-to-face interviews. Of the 1,800 distributed questionnaires, 1,586 completed questionnaires were received (response rate = 88.1%). The data collected were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The results indicated that exercise participation (β = 0.163, p = 0.000 ), social support (β = 0.384, p = 0.000 ), and health literacy (β = 0.360, p = 0.000 ) had significant positive effects on active aging. Health literacy did not moderate the effects of exercise participation and social support on active aging among older adults (β = −0.054, p = 0.197 and 0.061, p = 0.066 ). The current results confirm that social support has a considerable effect on active aging, which could be used as a reference for future proposals targeted at relevant institutions and older adults.
Highlights
Rapid population aging is a common and global phenomenon
The Cronbach’s alpha values of the variables were >0.7; the variables were determined to be consistent with the recommendation of Hair et al [21]. ese results indicated acceptable reliability. e composite reliability (CR) is primarily used to measure the composition of all variables and represents the internal consistency of the construct indicators
The CR values of the variables were >0.6; based on the standard recommended by Fornell and Larcker [26], the research model had satisfactory internal consistency. e average variance extracted (AVE) is mainly used to calculate the explanatory power of measurement variables for a latent variable
Summary
Rapid population aging is a common and global phenomenon. Taiwan’s demographic structure is changing because of subreplacement fertility and population aging. In 1993, older adults comprised >7% of the total population of Taiwan, indicating that the country was becoming an aging society. The proportion of older adults is estimated to exceed 20% by 2025, and Taiwan would become a super-aged society [1]. Taiwan will face challenges associated with population aging, such as increases in disease burden and disability risk, burdens to the national health care system, decline in the labor force, and heavy financial burdens on the economic security system for older adults. Proposing effective response measures to address the severe health problems among older adults is imperative.
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