Neighborhood effects on the health of elderly persons: evidence from China.

BACKGROUND: Presently, global aging has become increasingly serious, whereas the health concerns brought by aging have become a public issue that warrants an urgent solution from all countries across the world. Therefore, this research paper discusses the influence of neighborhood health on elderly individuals' health, and extending a realistic basis for the other economies to improve the neighborhood environment and promote the health of the elderly. METHODS: Based on the data of CHARLS2018, this research paper adopts the samples that fulfill the study requirements (N = 7326). we constructed a comprehensive research framework integrating oprobit regression model, heterogeneity analysis, conditional mixed process(CMP)robustness testing, Furthermore, the KHB decomposition method is implemented to ascertain the influential mechanism of NMH and NPH on the mental- and physical health of elderly persons. RESULTS: The oprobit regression model analysis indicates that NMH 0.434 and NPH 0.550 exert positive influences on the elderly's mental- and physical health. Meanwhile, the effects of conditional mixed process on NMH and NPH stand at 0.381 and4.372, which are different from the oprobit regression results; thereby, indicating the existence of endogeneity. Afterward, KHB mediating effect confirms that Internet use, gift reciprocity, and charity activity contribute 30.21% and 16.83% to mental- and physical health, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Firstly, the NMH and NPH demonstrate a positive influence on the mental- and physical health of the elder population. However, there exist heterogeneous differences. Secondly, the conditional mixed process deals with the endogeneity of NMH and NPH. Thirdly, social integration, social interaction, and social engagement serve as significant transmission mechanisms for the influences of NMH and NPH on the health of elderly persons.

Neighborhood health effects on the physical health of the elderly: Evidence from the CHRLS 2018.

Background: There are more than 26 million elderly people in China, and due to the Health China strategy proposed in 2020, "Elderly Health" has become an important topic of concern for all sectors of society. Neighborhoods provide important social relationships. However, Chinese researchers have not extensively explored the impact of these relationships on the physical health of the elderly. Methods: Based on the data from the 2018 China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS), we constructed a comprehensive research framework integrating ordinary least square (OLS) regression, heterogeneity analysis, IV-2SLS, robustness testing, and Karlson-Holm-Breen (KHB) mediating effect analysis, which can be used to thoroughly examine neighborhood health effects (NHEs) in relation to the physical health of the elderly. Results: The OLS results showed that the NHEs (B = 0.4689, p < 0.01) had a positive influence on the physical health of the elderly, and were lower than the NHEs estimated by IV-2SLS (B = 0.5018, p < 0.01). The mediating effects of social networks and social relationships were analyzed using KHB, and both the total (B = 0.6056, p < 0.01) and indirect (B = 0.0800, p < 0.01) effects on neighborhood health were significant, with the total effect being 10 times larger than the direct effect and 13.24% of the total effect coming from the mediating variable. Conclusions: Firstly, the NHEs positively influence the physical health of elderly persons, but there are heterogeneous differences. Secondly, the IV-2SLS estimation results suggest that not controlling for endogeneity leads to underestimation of the role of the NHEs. Thirdly, using the county-level NHEs, self-rated health, and health changes to replace variables, and grouping by smokers (small sample) and never smoked (large sample), the influence of the NHEs on the physical health of the elderly is robust. Finally, social networks and social relationships are important transmission mechanisms of the NHEs when it comes to the physical health of the elderly.