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. 2023 Jun 23:11:1203675.
doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2023.1203675. eCollection 2023.

The mental health of rural older adults: the role of the built environment in Jintang County

Ping Liang  1 , Yan Wang  2 , Tong Wang  3
Affiliations

The mental health of rural older adults: the role of the built environment in Jintang County

Ping Liang et al. Front Public Health. .

Abstract

The mental health of older adults has become one of the major health challenges facing society today, which has attracted wide concerns from scholars in urban areas, but research in rural areas has been neglected. Therefore, this paper took rural older adult residents of 11 sample villages in Jintang County, Chengdu City, Sichuan Province, as the research object. After controlling the demographic characteristics of older adults in rural areas, this paper attempted to explore the effects of the rural built Environment on the mental health of older adults. Through field investigation in the sample villages, 515 valid questionnaires were obtained. The results from the Binary Logistic Regression Model show that good marital status, physical health, education level, well-constructed roads, and safe neighborhoods had significant positive effects on the mental health of rural older adults. Rural older adults who prefer to walk, cycle, and use public transport have better mental health, and accessibility to the periodic market, health station, bus station, village committee, supermarket, and the main road is positively correlated with the mental health of rural older adults, while the distance from home to the town center and coach terminal has a significant negative impact on the mental health of rural older adults. The research results provide a theoretical reference for further construction of rural aging environments.

Keywords: binary logistic model; built; mental health; older adults; rural areas.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Data on China's older adult population.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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