Transfer of Promotion Effects on Elderly Health with Age: From Physical Environment to Interpersonal Environment and Social Participation.

Zheng Zheng,Chen Chen,Yang Yang

doi:10.3390/ijerph16152794

Abstract

An important goal of building “age-friendly communities” is to help the elderly to access more opportunities for social participation and better health. However, little is known about the complex relationships between neighborhood environment, social participation, and elderly health. This study examined the mediating role of social participation in the area of neighborhood environment affecting elderly health and explored the discrepancy among different age groups in 43 neighborhoods of Shanghai. Both neighborhood environment and social participation had significant positive effects on elderly health in all the samples. Meanwhile, social participation served as a mediator of the relationship between interpersonal environment and elderly health. Furthermore, remarkably, health promotion effects transferred from the physical environment to interpersonal environment and social participation with age; the influence of physical environment on elderly health decreased with the increase of age, while the influence of interpersonal environment and social participation on the health of the elderly increased with the increase of age. This study found that physical environment, interpersonal environment, and social participation had different effects on elderly health of different ages. Different policies should be applied toward improving the interpersonal environment, optimizing of physical environment, and guiding the community activities.

Highlights

With the increasing degree of global aging, the international society’s concept of responses has experienced a change from “successful aging” to “healthy aging” to “positive aging.” The role of the elderly should change from “passive dependent” to “active participants in social activities”where social participation becomes an important part of positive aging [1,2,3]
Some studies have confirmed the significant effects of the neighborhood environment on elderly health [14,15,16], and some others have explored the important impacts of social participation on elderly
The results based on all the samples of older adults accept most of the hypotheses. It confirmed that the physical environment, interpersonal environment, and social participation all have significant effects on elderly health, which was consistent with some previous studies [15,16,19]

Summary

Introduction

With the increasing degree of global aging, the international society’s concept of responses has experienced a change from “successful aging” to “healthy aging” to “positive aging.” The role of the elderly should change from “passive dependent” to “active participants in social activities”where social participation becomes an important part of positive aging [1,2,3]. The role of the elderly should change from “passive dependent” to “active participants in social activities”. Organization (WHO) formally introduced the concept of “age-friendly communities,” which aims to encourage governments to create communities that can lead to greater participation of the elderly in more social activities and contribute to their health [4,5,6]. The concept emphasizes that community is the main activity place and living space for the elderly [7,8,9], and its environment plays an important role in the social participation and health of the elderly [10,11,12,13]. Some studies have confirmed the significant effects of the neighborhood environment on elderly health [14,15,16], and some others have explored the important impacts of social participation on elderly. Public Health 2019, 16, 2794; doi:10.3390/ijerph16152794 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph

Methods

Discussion

Conclusion