Productive Aging by Environmental Volunteerism: A Systematic Review.

BACKGROUND: The aging society and climate changes pose significant challenges globally. Environmental volunteering solves these two problems by engaging older people in nature conservation as a possible model of productive aging. This review examines the current state of environmental volunteerism for older adults. METHODS: We systematically searched for articles in Medline, Embase, CENTRAL, CINAHL, and PsycINFO. Environmental volunteerism was defined as nature conservation activity without payment. There were 9 studies with a total of 328 participants. We conducted a narrative synthesis and meta-ethnography, which focused on types, benefits, motivations, and drawbacks of environmental volunteerism. RESULTS: Three types of volunteering were identified: greening, recycling, and project-oriented. Their shared factors included physical activity, social connection, and meaningful purpose. Environmental volunteerism associated with benefits in physical health, mental wellbeing, social capital, and personal empowerment with no apparent drawbacks. Retired people find a purpose to live, opportunities for socialization and physical activity, and increased self-esteem in the process. The motivations for initiation and continued engagement were found to be socialization, generativity, usefulness to others, and pro-environmental attitude. Among them, socialization was the most mentioned motivation, and generativity was the unique factor for older adults compared with the general population. CONCLUSION: Environmental volunteerism may be a positive model for older adults, society, and environment. Policymakers can encourage more older adults to engage in environmental volunteering with concerns of motivations, found by this study. Future studies can further strengthen the evidence and explore more types of environmental volunteerism.

The Potential Win-win Strategy for Healthy Aging and Environmental Protection: Environmental Volunteering.

PURPOSE: To explore the physical activity level of community environmental volunteering (CEV) participants and the differences in physical functions and daily activity patterns between the older adults who engaged in intensive CEV (≥15 hours/week) and non-intensive CEV (<15 hours/week) groups. DESIGN: Cross-sectional study. SETTING: Three recycling stations in Taiwan. SAMPLE: In total, 113 community-dwelling older adults who regularly participated in CEV. The response rate was 53%. MEASURES: The ActiGraph wGT3x-BT accelerometer for the percentage of sedentary, light, and moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) of CEV time and awaken time; the Jamar hand dynamometer for grip strength; and the MicroFET3 muscle testing dynamometer for knee extension strength. ANALYSIS: Analysis of covariance with the baseline characteristics as covariates. RESULTS: Overall, MVPA, light, and sedentary activities accounted for 53.73%, 41.10%, and 5.23% of CEV time, respectively. The intensive group (n = 61) displayed greater dominant handgrip strength (P = .004) and higher MVPA percentage in daily life (P = .044) than the non-intensive group (n = 52). CONCLUSION: CEV provides sufficient opportunities for older adults to perform physical activity. Intensive CEV is related to greater handgrip strength but not lower limb strength. Further study is needed to establish the causal relationship between CEV and health variates.

Potential benefits of environmental volunteering programs of the health of older adults: a pilot study.

PURPOSE: To study the effects of participating in a 12-week environmental volunteering program on the physical performance of older adults across different age groups MATERIALS AND METHODS: We conducted a pretest-posttest pilot study with a single group. The intervention consisted of twice-weekly recycling activities and once-weekly rehabilitation exercise at community-based care centers. The recycling activities of the environmental volunteering program included sorting and handling paper products, plastics, and metals; disposing electronic products; and sorting clothes. The rehabilitation exercise program comprised a 90-min course for special needs and 30 min of health education. The evaluation tools were the handgrip strength, five-times-sit-to-stand test, sit-and-reach test, Timed Up and Go (TUG) test and usual and fast gait speeds. RESULTS: In total, 45 participants completed the program. After the program, the participants showed significantly great improvements compared to baseline in all outcome measures. We further divided these participants into two age subgroups [65-75 years (n = 31) and >75 years (n = 14)]. The 65-75-year subgroup only showed significant improvements in handgrip strength, TUG and usual gait speed. However, the >75-year subgroup showed significant improvements in all outcome measures. CONCLUSIONS: This innovative environmental volunteering program conducted in a local Taiwanese community can be a sustainable and feasible model to improve physical performance in the participants, the subgroup aged >75 years in particular. It also provides a potential avenue for researchers and policymakers to address environmental and aging-related issues.