Abstract
Abstract: Rapid population ageing is becoming a serious social challenge for Chinese megacities. Compared with the individual's own resources and socio-economic characteristics, urban environment is a more easily regulated factor by government, which can be used as a means of preventing and improving psychological conditions besides the medical means. The existing research about the effect of urban environment on mental health of older adults mainly focuses on their direct relationship and neglecting underlying intervention. To effectively recognize the mechanism and path of the impact of urban environment on older adults’ mental health, the measure that constructing models with intervening variables need to be performed. This research aims to investigate the direct and indirect impacts of urban environment on objective psychology (sleep, memory, communicating) and subjective psychology (feeling, emotion, well-being, life satisfaction) of older adults in Dalian, taking into account perception and self-efficacy as intervening variable in one comprehensive conceptual model. The required sample data were collected through interviewing 900 older adults from more than 100 communities covering the whole urban area of Dalian and were analyzed in Structural Equation Model (SEM). The research found that the access to the park and market, street walkability, facility diversity and safety in district had positive correlation with subjective mental health of the elderly through perception path. Access to the leisure facilities and various facilities in district positively affect older people’s sleep and communicating though self-efficacy path, while high mixed land-use had negative effect on sleep. These finds help to approach the psychology-friendly and environment-healthy pattern of urban spatial development.
