Does gender matter to promote mental health through community engagement among older adults?

Abstract

Objectives: Community engagement is critical for healthy aging. However, how gender plays a role in mental health promotion of late life is less understood. The study objectives were to examine the association between community engagement and mental health and the effect of gender on this association in older adults.

Methods: A door-to-door interviewer-administered survey was conducted with 497 older adults in a public housing town in Singapore. The survey used measures of General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12), Community Integration Measure (CIM), FRAIL Index, Lubben Social Network, and community participation. Multiple regressions were conducted for psychological distress and social dysfunction, assessed by GHQ-12. After testing the main effects, the moderating effects of gender were explored in the regression models.

Results: None of the demographic characteristics, except gender, was associated with psychological distress; men reported poorer mental health than women. In regressions, female, community attachment (assessed by CIM), and participation were associated with decreased psychological distress; social networks and community participation were associated with decreased social dysfunction. Interaction effects of gender and community participation were found in psychological distress, not social dysfunction. The reduction of psychological distress by community engagement was higher among males than females.

Conclusions: The findings suggest that, besides the importance of community engagement on mental health among older adults, greater efforts should be placed on the development of gender-tailored community interventions for older adults to maximize its benefits.

KEYWORDS:

• Community attachment and participation
• interaction effects
• Singapore

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the participants in this research for their time and TOUCH Community Services, a local community organization that works for enhancing the well-being of older adults and their families and helped us to conduct the study. We especially thank Kelvin Lee, Jacinda Soh, and Stella Teo at TOUCH for their guidance for the community orientation. This study was conducted as part of the Community Health Project at Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine and led by Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health at National University of Singapore.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Singapore Ministry of Education Social Science Research Track Grant and Singapore Ministry of Education Academic Research Fund Tier 1.