Neighborhood environment and the wellbeing of older tenants in planned housing

Abstract

The relationship between neighborhood characteristics and the well-being of elderly tenants was studied through a national area probability sample of 153 planned housing environments and over 3000 tenants in them. Six indices of tenants' psychological and social well-being were used as dependent variables in hierarchical multiple regressions where neighborhood characteristics were entered after personal factors were controlled. Neighborhood environmental factors accounted for a significant proportion of the residual variance in every index of well-being. In general, quiet neighborhoods in small or middle sized communities where the risk of crime was low were conductive to active and satisfying lives for older people. Well-being tended to be higher in segregated buildings even with other factors such as exposure to crime controlled. Although these residual effects were often small it was concluded that environmentally based interventions could significantly enhance wellbeing and in many instances have more widespread effectiveness than time-consuming attempts to change the individual.