Built environment and loneliness in later life: productive engagement as the pathway

Abstract

Objectives

The built environment is increasingly recognized as being associated with late-life loneliness. However, the pathway remains understudied. This study investigated the mediating effects of productive engagement in relationships between the built environment and loneliness.

Methods

We conducted a cross-sectional analysis of data from 4,409 community-dwelling people aged 65 years and above in China. We employed the Chinese version of the De Jong Gierveld Loneliness Scale to assess loneliness. The built environment comprises residential density, street connectivity, park-based and vegetation-based green space, land use mix, and the number of and distance to the nearest recreational, health, shopping and community services within 300-meter and 500-meter buffer areas. Structural equation modeling was used.

Results

Only green space (parks) had a direct effect on loneliness. Residential density and green space (parks) had an indirect effect on loneliness through volunteering. The number of recreational services had an indirect effect on loneliness through recreational and sporting activities, although distance to the nearest recreational services did not. All the significant results were only found within 300-meter rather than 500-meter buffers.

Conclusions

Our findings have implications for environmental gerontology theory and practice. Providing more green space and recreational services can significantly improve older adults’ helping behavior, social activities and sporting activities, which can further reduce older adults’ loneliness.

Keywords:

• Loneliness
• built environment
• productive engagement
• older adults
• China

Acknowledgement

This work was supported by Beijing Education Sciences Fourteenth Five-year Planning Young Scholar Project (Grant No. BACA21111).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethical approval

The Research Ethics Committee, School of Social Development and Public Policy, Beijing Normal University provided Ethical approval for this study (reference no. SSDPP-HSC2018001, reference no. SSDPP-HSC2018002, and reference no. SSDPP-HSC2018004).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.