Factors Influencing Older Adults’ Perception of the Age-Friendliness of Their Environment and the Impact of Loneliness, Technology Use, and Mobility: Quantitative Analysis
BackgroundThe World Health Organization’s (WHO) publication on age-friendly environments (AFEs) imagines future cities to become more age-friendly to harness the latent potential of older adults, especially those who have restricted mobility. AFE has important implications fo...
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JMIR Publications
2025-05-01
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| Series: | JMIR Aging |
| Online Access: | https://aging.jmir.org/2025/1/e67242 |
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| author | Eric Balki Niall Hayes Carol Holland |
| author_facet | Eric Balki Niall Hayes Carol Holland |
| author_sort | Eric Balki |
| collection | DOAJ |
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BackgroundThe World Health Organization’s (WHO) publication on age-friendly environments (AFEs) imagines future cities to become more age-friendly to harness the latent potential of older adults, especially those who have restricted mobility. AFE has important implications for older adults in maintaining social connections, independence, and successful aging-in-place. However, technology is notably absent in the 8 intersecting domains of AFEs that the WHO imagines improve older adult well-being, and we investigated whether technology should form a ninth domain. While mobility was severely restricted, the COVID-19 pandemic provided an opportunity to test how older adults’ perceptions of their AFE changed and what role technology was playing.
ObjectiveThis study examined how life-space mobility (LSM), a concept for assessing patterns of functional mobility over time, and loneliness impacted perceived AFEs and the moderating effect of technology. It also explores whether technology should play a greater role as the ninth domain of the WHO’s imagination of the AFE of the future.
MethodsIn this cross-sectional quantitative observation study, data from 92 older adults aged 65-89 years were collected in England from March 2020 to June 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Life-space Questionnaire, Technology Experience Questionnaire, UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) Loneliness Scale, and age-friendly environment assessment tool were used. Correlation and moderation analyses were used to investigate relationships between variables.
ResultsMost participants (86/92, 93%) had not left their immediate town in the previous 4 weeks before the interview. Restricted LSM was positively correlated to the age-friendly environment assessment tool, that is, rising physical isolation was linked to a better perception of AFEs; however, we discovered this result was due to the moderating impact of increased use of technology, and that restricted LSM actually had a negative effect on AFEs. Loneliness was correlated negatively with the perception of AFEs, but technology use was found to moderate the impact of loneliness.
ConclusionsPandemic-related LSM restrictions impacted perceived AFEs and loneliness negatively, but technology played a moderating role. The findings demonstrate that technology could be considered as a ninth domain in the WHO’s assessment of AFEs for older adults and that there is a need for its explicit acknowledgment. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-87f4c717cb8946d8b55d69f81554e488 |
| institution | DOAJ |
| issn | 2561-7605 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-05-01 |
| publisher | JMIR Publications |
| record_format | Article |
| series | JMIR Aging |
| spelling | doaj-art-87f4c717cb8946d8b55d69f81554e4882025-08-20T03:11:25ZengJMIR PublicationsJMIR Aging2561-76052025-05-018e6724210.2196/67242Factors Influencing Older Adults’ Perception of the Age-Friendliness of Their Environment and the Impact of Loneliness, Technology Use, and Mobility: Quantitative AnalysisEric Balkihttps://orcid.org/0000-0001-5404-7187Niall Hayeshttps://orcid.org/0000-0001-8718-4671Carol Hollandhttps://orcid.org/0000-0001-7109-6554 BackgroundThe World Health Organization’s (WHO) publication on age-friendly environments (AFEs) imagines future cities to become more age-friendly to harness the latent potential of older adults, especially those who have restricted mobility. AFE has important implications for older adults in maintaining social connections, independence, and successful aging-in-place. However, technology is notably absent in the 8 intersecting domains of AFEs that the WHO imagines improve older adult well-being, and we investigated whether technology should form a ninth domain. While mobility was severely restricted, the COVID-19 pandemic provided an opportunity to test how older adults’ perceptions of their AFE changed and what role technology was playing. ObjectiveThis study examined how life-space mobility (LSM), a concept for assessing patterns of functional mobility over time, and loneliness impacted perceived AFEs and the moderating effect of technology. It also explores whether technology should play a greater role as the ninth domain of the WHO’s imagination of the AFE of the future. MethodsIn this cross-sectional quantitative observation study, data from 92 older adults aged 65-89 years were collected in England from March 2020 to June 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Life-space Questionnaire, Technology Experience Questionnaire, UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) Loneliness Scale, and age-friendly environment assessment tool were used. Correlation and moderation analyses were used to investigate relationships between variables. ResultsMost participants (86/92, 93%) had not left their immediate town in the previous 4 weeks before the interview. Restricted LSM was positively correlated to the age-friendly environment assessment tool, that is, rising physical isolation was linked to a better perception of AFEs; however, we discovered this result was due to the moderating impact of increased use of technology, and that restricted LSM actually had a negative effect on AFEs. Loneliness was correlated negatively with the perception of AFEs, but technology use was found to moderate the impact of loneliness. ConclusionsPandemic-related LSM restrictions impacted perceived AFEs and loneliness negatively, but technology played a moderating role. The findings demonstrate that technology could be considered as a ninth domain in the WHO’s assessment of AFEs for older adults and that there is a need for its explicit acknowledgment.https://aging.jmir.org/2025/1/e67242 |
| spellingShingle | Eric Balki Niall Hayes Carol Holland Factors Influencing Older Adults’ Perception of the Age-Friendliness of Their Environment and the Impact of Loneliness, Technology Use, and Mobility: Quantitative Analysis JMIR Aging |
| title | Factors Influencing Older Adults’ Perception of the Age-Friendliness of Their Environment and the Impact of Loneliness, Technology Use, and Mobility: Quantitative Analysis |
| title_full | Factors Influencing Older Adults’ Perception of the Age-Friendliness of Their Environment and the Impact of Loneliness, Technology Use, and Mobility: Quantitative Analysis |
| title_fullStr | Factors Influencing Older Adults’ Perception of the Age-Friendliness of Their Environment and the Impact of Loneliness, Technology Use, and Mobility: Quantitative Analysis |
| title_full_unstemmed | Factors Influencing Older Adults’ Perception of the Age-Friendliness of Their Environment and the Impact of Loneliness, Technology Use, and Mobility: Quantitative Analysis |
| title_short | Factors Influencing Older Adults’ Perception of the Age-Friendliness of Their Environment and the Impact of Loneliness, Technology Use, and Mobility: Quantitative Analysis |
| title_sort | factors influencing older adults perception of the age friendliness of their environment and the impact of loneliness technology use and mobility quantitative analysis |
| url | https://aging.jmir.org/2025/1/e67242 |
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