Exploring the inner relationship among neighborhood environmental factors affecting quality of life of older adults based on SLR–ISM method

How the Urban Neighborhood Environment Influences the Quality of Life of Chinese Community-Dwelling Older Adults: An Influence Model of “NE-QoL”

“…According to the conceptual model ( Figure 2), only when direct effects between variable of neighborhood environment and dimension of QoL is significant, the existence of mediation effect between them can be possible. Our previous study has already analyzed and concluded the inner relationship among neighborhood environment affecting QoL of older adults qualitatively [36]. So, based on the inner relationship and results of the multiple regression analysis, hypotheses of mediation effects are proposed, including simple mediation effects and multiple mediation effects.…”

“…According to the literature review and theory of "Person-Environment Fit" [15,37], neighborhood environment can affect the QoL of community-dwelling older adults directly. Besides, based on the complex inner relationship of neighborhood environment [36], these variables which have significant direct effects may play different roles in influencing relations. Part of variables of the neighborhood environment are regarded as mediators, which can be also affected by other variables, and the other part of variables of neighborhood environment are regarded as independent variables which can affect mediators.…”

“…Based on the literature review and previous studies [36,38], the questionnaire is designed to identify the significant variables of neighborhood environment affecting QoL of community-dwelling older adults, hypnotize and test mediation effects between them. The questionnaire contains three main parts: general information of respondents, neighborhood environment and QoL assessments.…”

“…The next part of the questionnaire is an assessment of neighborhood environment. There were 16 main neighborhood environmental factors belonging to physical and natural aspects; social aspect, facility and service aspect and safety and security aspect were identified by our systematic literature review about urban neighborhood environmental factors affecting the QoL of older adults [36]. In this study, these 16 neighborhood environmental factors are adopted as variables of the urban neighborhood environment, including physical and natural aspect: (E1) land-use mix, (E2) barrier-free design, (E3) street condition, (E4) sidewalk condition, (E5) natural environment; social aspect: (E6) neighbor support; facility and service aspect: (E7) public transport, (E8) outdoor public spaces, (E9) facilities related to health & security, (E10) facilities related to physical exercise & recreation, (E11) facilities related to daily life, (E12) accessibility to facilities; safety and security aspects: (E13) traffic-related safety, (E14) crime-related safety, (E15) design-related safety and (E16) security [36].…”

“…Based on the review above, it is obvious that different factors of neighborhood environment may have different influence relations with older adults. The composition and inner relationship of the neighborhood environment are quite complex, usually consisting of physical environment, natural environment, social environment, facilities within neighborhood environment and safety [36]. Seldom researches consider the whole neighborhood environment as a comprehensive system that contains all possible influence factors of older adults, and explore the complex influence relationship between neighborhood environment and QoL of community-dwelling older adults.…”