Association of home and community-based services and cognitive function of Chinese older adults: social participation as a mediator.

BACKGROUND: This study makes an effort to examine the impact of home and community-based services on maintaining cognitive function and understand the mediating effect of social participation on the relationship of community services and older adults' cognitive function in China. METHOD: The empirical data comes from the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS). A total of 38,582 (person-time) respondents were gathered for this study. The two-way fixed effects regression model is used to estimate the associations between independent variables, mediating variables and cognitive ability after controlling for socio-demographic, family responsibility, and time variables. RESULT: This study has confirmed that participating in daily and social activities is associated with the cognitive functions of Chinese older adults. Social participation can stimulate cognition. Active participation in outdoor activities, doing housework or taking care of kids, daily playing cards or mah-jong, reading books and newspapers, watching TV, and listening to the radio can significantly promote the cognitive ability of older adults. In addition, the findings have indicated the importance of community services for older adults. This study shows personal daily care services, legal aid services, health education services, as well as dealing with family and neighborhood disputes have a positive effect on maintaining older adults' cognitive functions. Meanwhile, the provision of door-to-door medical services hurts their cognitive functions. This study also illustrates that community-based services can increase the level of older adults' social participation, and then enhance their level of cognitive function. CONCLUSION: This study can inform service provision agencies to develop targeted programs to support older adults' continued engagement.

Determinants of Residential Satisfaction During the Initial Stage of the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Case of Xiangyang City, China.

Objectives: To explore the impacts of psychological character strengths, self-efficacy, and the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases on residential satisfaction at the initial stage of the COVID-19 pandemic in China. Methods: To achieve the study aim, we collected data from 281 observations from Xiangyang City, China, via an online survey. Data were analyzed using linear regression. Results: Character strengths and the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases significantly impacted residential satisfaction. While self-efficacy did not directly impact residential satisfaction, it moderated the relationship between the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases and residential satisfaction. The control variables of social trust and shared value positively impacted residential satisfaction, and their influence on residential satisfaction was higher than that of character strengths. The sociodemographic variables of marriage, age, educational attainment, and housing area per capita also impacted residential satisfaction significantly. However, strong ties and weak ties became insignificant variables due to social distancing strategies. Conclusion: The study findings offer insights for local governments to enhance residential satisfaction in the community to avoid social panic during unpredictable threats or future pandemics.

Factors associated with the utilization of community-based health services among older adults in China-an empirical study based on Anderson's health behavior model.

Taking the modified Anderson health behavior model as the analysis framework and relying on 1136 empirical research data of S District in Foshan City, Guangdong Province of China, this study explores the influence of predisposing factors, enabling factors and need factors on the utilization of community-based health services among older adults in China. The results show that three variables have a significant impact on the use of family health services, which are whether the pension is the main source of living, income surplus, and major expenditure items. Seven variables have a significant impact on the use of preventive health services, which are household registration type, the basic endowment insurance coverage, the nature of the working unit before retirement, the self-rated health status, chronic diseases, self-care ability in daily life, and preventive health care needs.