The built environment is increasingly recognized as being associated with health outcomes among older adults. This study examines how multiple housing features collectively are associated with self-rated health in the United States. Using data from Round 12 of the National Health and Aging Trends Study (n = 930), multiple correspondence analysis combined housing type, residential setting and building floors into a composite measure of residential complexity. Ordinal logistic regression models, adjusted for age, sex, education, race and functional capacity, assessed associations with self-rated health, including age and sex interactions. Higher residential complexity was linked to poorer self-rated health (beta = -0.249, p < 0.001), but this relationship became non-significant after adjusting for socio-economic and health factors (beta = -0.065, p = 0.148). A significant interaction with age revealed a clear gradient (p < 0.001). The adverse association was negligible in those aged 65-69 (beta = -0.02, p = 0.812) but substantially stronger in the oldest-old: for example, in 85+ it was (beta = -0.31, p < 0.001). There was no significant interaction with sex (p = 0.552). Grounded in person-environment fit theory, findings underscore the need for housing policies that integrate structural accessibility with socio-economic supports.
This study investigates the long-term physical and psychological health impacts of early-life wartime trauma among North Vietnamese survivors and examines how resilience may moderate these outcomes. Using a lifecourse perspective and Bronfenbrenner's bioecological model, we conducted in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 36 older Vietnamese adults, aged 64 to 92 (M = 75.2), from a region heavily affected by the American War. Our qualitative analysis highlights cumulative physical health challenges such as musculoskeletal degeneration and the lasting effects of chemical exposure. Many survivors still experience psychological distress, including recurring nightmares, anxiety and unresolved grief. Participants used coping strategies such as proactive health management, gratitude, acceptance of uncertainty, maintaining a forward-focused mindset and, in some cases, deliberately avoiding painful memories. Family and community support reinforced these coping mechanisms. However, structural inequities in economic policies and resource distribution created barriers to financial assistance, which participants saw as harmful to social cohesion. While many survivors drew strength from a collective wartime identity, concerns about declining community connectedness raised questions about the sustainability of traditional resilience strategies. The findings illustrate how resilience moderates the long-term physical and psychological health impacts of early-life wartime trauma within interconnected bioecological contexts. They highlight the need for integrated, culturally responsive interventions that address both chronic health conditions and the social determinants of resilience in post-conflict environments.
Abstract Maintaining optimal cognitive function is crucial for middle-aged and older adults. However, the lifecourse mechanisms linking parental religious affiliation to later-life cognition remain insufficiently understood. By integrating religious socialization theory and a lifecourse perspective, and using multiple waves of data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, this study employed structural equation modelling to investigate how personal religious affiliation, educational attainment, healthy lifestyles and social participation mediated the lifecourse pathways linking parental religious affiliation to later-life cognition. The results indicated that parental religious affiliation was overall negatively associated with later-life cognitive function. Parental religious affiliation was linked to later-life cognitive function through independent indirect pathways via educational attainment and healthy lifestyles, as well as through serial indirect pathways involving personal religious affiliation. This overall negative association was driven mainly by education-related pathways, while the positive pathways through personal religious affiliation and healthy lifestyles were substantially smaller in magnitude. The pathways involving social participation were not significant. The findings shed light on the lifecourse mechanisms through which family religious background was associated with later-life cognitive function and underscore the importance of education in understanding cognitive inequality in China’s relatively secular context.
Abstract Unmet socio-emotional needs are a significant concern in ageing societies since they affect individuals’ health and wellbeing. This study focuses on the concept of socio-emotional care poverty, where people in need of social and emotional support do not receive sufficient support from either informal or formal sources. The research investigates whether older people have a higher, moderate or lower risk of socio-emotional care poverty. The study also explores how the composition of and the contact frequency with their social network members are associated with this phenomenon. This study used a national-level survey collected in Finland between October and December 2020 among people aged 75 years and above living in their own homes (N = 2,585). The results showed that 7 per cent (n = 175) of respondents are at high risk, while 26 per cent (n = 684) are at moderate risk of socio-emotional care poverty. The high-risk group has less frequent contact with children, siblings, relatives and friends. Relationships with both family and non-family members significantly impact socio-emotional care poverty in older people. Obtaining emotional support from family members or others outside of one’s immediate family in today’s society is becoming increasingly challenging owing to changing family structures and reduced health and social care support. Therefore, special attention should be given to older people in high-risk and moderate-risk groups to ensure that their basic care needs are met, allowing them to maintain a good quality of life.
Abstract Understanding the nature of informal care received by older adults, particularly from adult children, is increasingly important. Existing research has largely overlooked the diversity of care and support received by older adults. To address this gap, we draw on data from Wave 7 (2015–2017) of the UK Household Longitudinal Study to identify patterns of parental care receipt from adult children. Latent class analysis identified three classes and stratifying these classes according to whether older adults reported care needs revealed five groups: (1) comprehensive receivers, who receive high levels of support from their adult children across all care and support tasks; (2) moderate receivers with care needs, who primarily receive support with domestic tasks and report limitations in daily functioning; (3) moderate receivers without care needs, who receive the same patterns of support but without reported functional limitations; (4) low receivers with care needs, who receive minimal support from their adult children across care tasks but report limitations in daily functioning; (5) low receivers without care needs, those who don’t report functional limitations and receive minimal support. Multinomial logistic regression showed that comprehensive receivers were more likely to be older and living alone, whereas low receivers without care needs were younger and more likely to live with a partner. These patterns help identify groups of older adults at varying levels of vulnerability in meeting their future care needs, providing evidence to support policy makers in planning and evaluating care provision for an ageing population.
