Intergenerational Differences in Age-friendly Environments and Health Outcomes: Social Support as a Mediator

ABSTRACT

We examined intergenerational differences in the prevalence of age-friendly environments (AFE), social support, depressive symptoms, and chronic diseases, and the complex associations among those variables in Korean adults. A cross-sectional survey of 1,000 respondents and multi-group structural equation modeling results showed intergenerational differences in the prevalence of AFE, social support, depressive symptoms, and chronic diseases, and complex pathways of the major variables, including the mediating effect of social support. These findings have implications for health professionals in identifying environmental risk factors and implementing effective physical and mental health interventions targeting different age groups among Korean adults.

KEYWORDS:

• Age-friendly environments
• social support
• health outcomes
• depressive symptoms
• chronic diseases

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was declared by the author.

IRB Approval

This study obtained approval from the Institutional Review Board at Ewha Woman's University (ewha-201911-0011-02).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2018S1A5B5A02032658).