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. 2025 Jun 23.
doi: 10.1007/s00127-025-02947-8. Online ahead of print.

Health and well-being comparison between residents of serviced housing for older people and community-dwelling older adults in japan: a propensity score matching analysis

Hequn Wang  1   2 , Kenjiro Kawaguchi  2 , Ling Ling  2 , Kazushige Ide  3 , Atsushi Nakagomi  2 , Katsunori Kondo  4   5
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Health and well-being comparison between residents of serviced housing for older people and community-dwelling older adults in japan: a propensity score matching analysis

Hequn Wang et al. Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol. .

Abstract

Purpose: Serviced Housing for Older People (SHOP) in Japan offers barrier-free living environments and supportive services to enhance the health and well-being of older adults. This study aimed to compare the health and well-being of SHOP residents with community-dwelling older adults and to compare factors that may influence them.

Methods: This cross-sectional study utilized propensity score matching to compare the health and well-being of 1,080 SHOP residents (69.4% female; mean age: 83.9 years) with 7,560 community-dwelling older adults (67.8% female; mean age: 84.1 years) from the Japan Gerontological Evaluation Study. Health and well-being were assessed using nine items. Additionally, social behaviours and social factors such as laughing frequency, regular outings, hobbies, depression, participation in preventive care activities, meeting friends frequently, emotional support, and eating with others, were compared.

Results: SHOP residents exhibited significantly higher levels of happiness, life satisfaction, and physical health compared to community-dwelling older adults. They were more engaged in activities like regular outings, attending preventive care activities, meeting friends, and eating with others. They also reported higher frequencies of laughter and received emotional support.

Conclusion: SHOP may improve the health and well-being of older adults. These findings can help in developing age-friendly housing initiatives to address the challenges of an aging society.

Keywords: Human flourishing; Mental health; Physical health; Social interaction; Social participation.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Competing interests: Co-author Katsunori Kondo has received research funding from Sekisui House Real Estate Tokyo, Ltd. The purpose of this funding was to evaluate the effectiveness of the services provided by these companies and to provide them with feedback on how to improve their services based on the findings of this study. The funding contract had no restrictions on the study design, analysis, interpretation, and writing of the article but required a prior agreement for publication. No other authors have conflicts of interest to declare. This study used data from the Japan Gerontological Evaluation Study (JAGES) and Sekisui House Real Estate Tokyo, Ltd. We thank the study participants and the research assistants who collected and managed the data. Ethics approval: This study was conducted with the approval of the Chiba University Ethics Review Committee (No. M10460 & No. M10166). Written informed consent for academic use of the data was obtained from all participants, and only data from individuals who provided consent were included in the analysis.

References

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