Older People’s Perception of Changes in Their Living Environment after Relocation: A Case Study in Beijing, China

Abstract

Beijing has been experiencing population ageing and rapid urbanization processes. Older people's living environment has changed dramatically. This research aims to understand the older people's perception of the changes in their living environment, the determinants of age-friendly living environment, and the impact path before and after their relocation in Beijing. The quantitative analysis is based on 353 valid questionnaires collected in four sample communities in Beijing. By using descriptive analysis and structure equation modeling (SEM), the results show that the living environment gets improved after relocation except accessibility to health care facilities. The cultural environment of the communities has significant impacts on the age-friendliness of the living environment. The physical environment of communities is able to improve the living environment indirectly through promoting the community cultural environment. This study sheds light on future research on age-friendly living environment for the ageing population in Beijing. conditions had a significant direct effect on the community environment (0.27), and the improvement 339 in living conditions can improve the perception of the community environment. As for the 340 community-built environment, the result showed that the community-built environment had no 341 significant direct effect on the general perceptions of the changes in community environment.342 However, the improvement in the built environment had a significant indirect impact on the 343 perceptions of changes in community environment, through facilitating older people's interpersonal 344 communication (0.16) and the recreational activities in the community (0.48). This result implied that 345 the built environment indirectly improved the community environment in general by improving 346 residents' perceptions of the social cultural environment. With regard to the accessibility to services, 347 although no significant association was found between the accessibility to services and overall 348 perceptions of community environments in this model, this path was kept showing possible relations349 which are supposed by previous research. The next two variables are interpersonal communication 350 and community recreational activities, which can be seen as components of community cultural 351 environment. The result showed that the improvement of interpersonal communication significantly 352 promotes the general community environment (0.37). Recreational activities could both significantly 353 directly influence the perception of overall community environment (0.29), and indirectly promote 354 the community environment through affecting interpersonal communication (0.07). In addition, the 355 improvements in the accessibility to information on policies (0.17) had a direct positive influence on 356 the perception of community environment. Indirectly, accessibility to information (0.17) was able to 357 improve the overall perception of the community environment by promoting community health 358 se...

Assessing Spatial Accessibility of Community Hospitals for the Elderly in Beijing, China

“…Most studies found that urban or plain areas had higher spatial accessibility to health services than rural or mountainous areas. This spatial discrepancy could be attributed to fundamental differences in geography and economic and social development [57,71,72]. This study also indicated a gradient of community-hospital accessibility, gradually decreasing from the central urban area to the urban edge.…”

Locating Senior-Friendly Restaurants in a Community: A Bi-Objective Optimization Approach for Enhanced Equality and Convenience

“…Accessible recreational places play an important role in enhancing senior citizens' physical and mental health and improving their sense of happiness [43,44]. As the physical strength of senior citizens declines markedly with aging, their daily activity space tends to shrink gradually [45]. The spatial accessibility of different activity locations is a crucial factor influencing the daily outdoor participation of senior citizens [46].…”

Mediating Role of Psychological Capital in the Relationship Between Social Support and Self-Neglect Among Chinese Community-Dwelling Older Adults

“…Additionally, several studies report a significant association between social support and self-neglect in different countries ( Burnett et al, 2006 ; Dyer and Reyes-Ortiz, 2017 ). However, the implementation of the one child policy, changed family structures, and the large-scale migration of younger adults seeking employment has decreased the social support for older adults in China ( Cao et al, 2015 ; Zhong et al, 2018 ; Gao and Cheng, 2020 ). Therefore, there is an urgent need to find alternative solutions.…”