Investigating the impacts of urban built environments on users of multiple services in elderly care facilities

Abstract

This paper aims to characterize the varied urban settings community-based elderly care facilities are located, and examine whether characteristics of urban built environments influence the number of older people attending care facilities for multiple services. The dataset incorporates 108 cases of community-based elderly care facilities and usage records from over 17000 users collected in the Chinese city of Nanjing. A network-based approach was employed to comprehensively describe urban built environments surrounding care facilities with a series of metrics on street morphology and land-uses. It was found that urban built environments significantly influenced the number of users attending care facilities. Facilities having more users tended to locate in places with more shops and stores, on major arterial streets of the city, or inside large housing estates in the outer city. Moreover, urban factors performed differently in affecting users of different services as services accepting spontaneous users were more likely to be influenced by street morphology. This study revealed specific urban factors facilitating older people's usage of care resources. It also generated practical implications regarding the strategies for the planning of spatial locations and service provision to improve the utilization of community-based elderly care.