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

Zhenhua Zheng, Hong Chen and Liu Yang
Additional contact information
Zhenhua Zheng: College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University, 1239 Siping Road, Shanghai 200092, China
Hong Chen: College of Architecture and Environment, Sichuan University, No.24 First South Section First Ring Road, Chengdu 610065, China
Liu Yang: Institute of Local Governance, Yangtze Normal University, 16 Juxian Avenue, Chongqing 408100, China

IJERPH, 2019, vol. 16, issue 15, 1-15

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.

Keywords: elderly health; physical environment; interpersonal environment; social participation; age differences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/15/2794/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/15/2794/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:16:y:2019:i:15:p:2794-:d:254963

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().