The effects of poverty environments on elders' subjective well-being: a conceptual model

Abstract

This article presents a conceptual model, the Urban Ecological Model of Aging, to be used by researchers to assess the impact of living in neighborhoods of concentrated and prolonged poverty on elderly residential satisfaction and subjective well-being. Specifically, the suprapersonal environment characteristics, or aggregated people characteristics, of impoverished urban neighborhoods are explicated and included in a predictive model of community-dwelling elders' affective state, i.e., positive and negative affect. Demographic and personal characteristics are also included in the model as predictors.