Background: Age-friendly business (AFB) initiatives have gained increasing attention in recent years, yet empirical evidence on their relationship with older adults’ mental well-being, and on for whom they matter most, remains limited. Drawing on Person–Environment fit and ecological frameworks, this study examines the associations between AFB and mental well-being shaped by functioning status across individual- to community-levels. Methods: We use the second wave data from the Panel Study on Active Ageing and Society (PAAS, N=5000), a representative survey data on Hong Kong older adults. Mental well-being was captured by loneliness and happiness, and functional status was operationalized at three levels: individual frailty, family functioning, and community social capital. Multiple linear regression models estimated associations between AFB and well-being, and tested interaction terms between overall AFB and each functional-status indicator. Results: Higher overall satisfaction with AFB was associated with lower loneliness and higher happiness. Interaction analyses showed that AFB reduced loneliness most among older adults with higher frailty and those living in communities with better social capital, whereas strong families partially substituted for AFB’s effects. For happiness, AFB provided additional benefits among frailer individuals but showed diminishing returns for older adults with stronger family functioning. Conclusions: AFB is linked to better mental well-being among older adults, but its benefits are not uniform. Older adults with poorer individual and family functioning appear to derive greater gains from high satisfaction with AFE, whereas good community functioning further amplifies the positive association between AFE and well-being.

Authors:
Yuxuan Zou, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong
Youjuan Zhang, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong
Ke Ma, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong
Min Yang, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong
Xue Bai, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong

About the Presenter(s)
Dr. Yuxuan Zou is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Applied Social Sciences, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong.

See this presentation on the full schedule – Wednesday Schedule

Bookmark