Social Infrastructure and Street Networks as Critical Infrastructure for Aging Friendly Community Design: Mediating the Effect of Physical Activity

Jiayi Jiang, Zhengwei Xia (), Xiaodi Sun, Xuanxuan Wang and Shixian Luo
Additional contact information
Jiayi Jiang: School of Architecture, Soochow University, No. 199 Ren-ai Road, Suzhou Industrial Park, Suzhou 215123, China
Zhengwei Xia: School of Architecture, Soochow University, No. 199 Ren-ai Road, Suzhou Industrial Park, Suzhou 215123, China
Xiaodi Sun: School of Architecture, Soochow University, No. 199 Ren-ai Road, Suzhou Industrial Park, Suzhou 215123, China
Xuanxuan Wang: School of Architecture, Soochow University, No. 199 Ren-ai Road, Suzhou Industrial Park, Suzhou 215123, China
Shixian Luo: Department of Environmental Sciences and Landscape Architecture, Graduate School of Horticulture, Chiba University-Matsudo Campus, Chiba 271-8510, Japan

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 19, 1-16

Abstract: Establishing an age-friendly environment at the community level is essential for promoting healthy aging. This study focused on the relationship between older adults and the community environment through their levels of satisfaction within it. We measured their physical activity (PA) in the community environment and three variables of community-level satisfaction: community environment (SCE), community social infrastructure (SSI), and community street networks (SSN). We analyzed 108 older adult participants in Suzhou using mediation analysis and multiple linear regression to investigate the relationship between physical activity and the community environment. The results of the mediation effect model showed that SCE, SSI, and SSN all affected the physical functions of older adults via the total amount of physical activity (TPA); SSI and SSN affected older adults’ physical functions by affecting the total duration of moderate-intensity physical activity (MPA) and vigorous-intensity physical activity (VPA). In addition, SSI and SSN are related to the types of community facilities, street space quality, and accessibility. Our study provides valuable insights into optimizing aging-friendly neighborhoods through moderate-to-vigorous-intensity PAs at both the facility and street space levels.

Keywords: older adults; physical activity; community social infrastructure; community street networks; age-friendly environment; healthy aging (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/19/11842/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/19/11842/ (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:19:y:2022:i:19:p:11842-:d:919325

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 ().