China's community-based interventions for older people

Abstract

This study examines how community-based policies and environments could support older people to live independently in China. The study adopts Huber’s positive health definition to argue that older people can lead the lives they value despite having chronic conditions, and that the policy focus should be on enabling their capabilities to live independently. Our research aim has been furthered by using a mixed methodology. First, quantitative methods examine how the residential environment supports older people's capabilities to live independently. The findings show that apart from home accessibility, other neighborhood-level environmental factors (pleasant surroundings, meeting opportunities, and life convenience) positively influence older people's capabilities to live independently. Since a supportive residential environment enables older people's capabilities to live independently, it may boost their sense of confidence and control that they can self-manage, leading to an increased desire to age in place. Since Sen’s capability approach is still under development, this study also develops a methodology based on the latent class choice model that allows people to express preferred environmental factors without prior assumptions and identifies different segments of the population with different housing demands. Second, qualitative methods investigate which community-based policies are effective and contextually appropriate. We argue that a contextually appropriate community must follow several institutional logics. Such institutional arrangements should enable accountability relationships between different actors to enable effective community-based intervention.