Assessing And Simulating The Influence Of Urban Neighborhood Environment On Quality Of Life Of Elderlys Aging In Place

Nowadays,aging problem is a global issue.Chinese older adults not only account for a large proportion,but also have significant characteristics like “aging before rich” and “large regional differences”.How to cope with aging becomes an important social problem which cannot be neglected.Traditionally,two main choices for aging are aging in home,which most people prefer,and aging in institutions,which needs high expenses.However,with the development of society,the scale of modern families shrinks heavily,the structure of families simplifies,so the support older adults can get from families reduce significantly.Only family supports can not meet the increasing requirements of aging.Aging in place with supports from family and community becomes the most effective way to solve this problem.Current researches related to aging in place focus more on service supply,supply mode,or allocation,but few related researches pay attention to neighborhood environment,which is also an important part to facilitate the sustainability of aging in place.Therefore,this study mainly focuses on how urban neighborhood environment influence the quality of life of older adult aging in place,based on the idea of “assessment – influence factors – influence model – influence simulation – design and strategy”.The main objective is trying to improve quality of life of older adults aging in place by optimizing their neighborhood environment,and then to support the sustainability of aging in place.The main components of this study are as follows.(1)In terms of realistic significance and theoretical significance,this study analyzes the research background and literature review,exploring the necessity and feasibility.Based on definition of aging in place and urban neighborhood,and theories of human settlement,P-E fit and ecological theory of aging,this study clearly defines research objects – quality of life of older adults who are aging in place and urban neighborhood environment.After comparing three most popular assessments of quality of life in the whole world,this study chooses the WHOQOL-BREF as the assessment of quality of life of older adults,and modifies it according to the characteristics of older adults.(2)This study uses the method of systematic literature review with the flow path of “search protocol – screening protocol – quality assessment process – factor identification”,scientifically and strictly identifies the key factors of neighborhood environment which have effects on quality of life of older adults from existing literature.Then the grounded theory is applied to identify complementary neighborhood environmental factors from interview record of older adults.The final urban neighborhood environmental key factors are determined by concluding results of systematic literature review and grounded theory.However,during summarizing the all key factors,the accessibility of facilities is found without agreed definition and assessment.Considering the unique travel behavior of older adults,a modified 2SFCA method are developed called TBG2SFCA(Travel behavior-based Gaussian two-step floating catchment area)by adding the element of travel behavior.This new method significantly increases the calculation accuracy of accessibility to especial facilities for especial population groups.Then,Nanjing is chosen as a case study,the accessibility to community-based service centers are assessed by TB-G2 SFCA method,and the spatial disparities of accessibility is detected in Nanjing.(3)The interpretive structural model is applied to explore the inner relationship and structure of all urban neighborhood environmental key factors.Then,core factors which influence quality of life of older adults significantly are identified,and the “NE-QoL” model for older adults are hypothesized and verified by using the correlation analysis,multiple regression and structural equation model.(4)Two simulation networks of key factors and core factors are established with BP neural network.According to results of training and testing,the network of core factors is chosen as the simulation model of influence of neighborhood environment on quality of life of older adults.Then,scenarios simulation is applied to set eight most possible scenarios happen in the future,trying to simulate the change of future neighborhood environmental core factors,and deciding the probability model of each core factors under each scenario.And then,Monte-Carlo simulation is used to simulate and generate 2000 samples of core factors based on the probability model under different scenarios.Finally,all samples are put in the simulation model of BP neural network,and the distribution of simulation of quality of life under different scenarios can be obtained.(5)In terms of “the ecological model of aging”,this study analyzes the adaptive behavior of older adults under different environmental press and proposed detailed optimization plan of neighborhood environment for improving quality of life of older adults.This study uses SWOT analysis the strong,weakness,opportunity and threaten of optimization plan qualitatively,then uses AHP analysis to rank the importance of results of SWOT analysis.The implementation strategy of optimization plan is determined.The innovation of this paper can be summarized as the following four points:(1)This research innovatively added the travel behavior of specific population as an improvement factor to the G2 SFCA method,and proposed the TB-G2 SFCA method,which can not only be used to measure the accessibility of facilities for the elderly at home,but also provide a new method for the accessibility measurement of specific facilities for other special population.(2)In this study,the key factors affecting the quality of life of the elderly at home are identified systematically and rigorously by combining systematic review with qualitative analysis.Then,ISM,correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis are further used to identify the factors that have significant impact on the quality of life of the elderly at home.Finally,the “NE-QoL” impact mechanism model was proposed and validated by structural equation model.(3)This study proposes a set of simulation methods for the effect of “scenario simulation-improved Monte Carlo simulation-BP neural network”.Eight different scenarios that urban communities may be in in the future are determined from multiple perspectives,and the core environmental factors of urban communities under different scenarios are simulated by improved Monte Carlo simulation.In order to obtain the effect of urban community environment on the quality of life of the elderly at home in different scenarios,the trained BP neural network was used to predict the distribution of the quality of life of the elderly at home in different scenarios.(4)Combining with the “gerontological ecology model”,the optimization schemes for the core and non-core factors of urban community environment are formulated respectively,and then the implementation strategies of the optimization schemes for the aging of urban community environment are put forward by using SWOT-AHP method through qualitative analysis and quantitative sequencing.