Space-based planning implications for age-friendly cities: Insights from spatial non-stationarity in multiple environment-health relationships

Extensive research on the relationships between environmental factors and older adults' health can inform urban planning for healthy and age-friendly cities. Past studies have predominantly considered such relationships as stable over space, with less emphasis paid to spatial non-stationarity and space-based rationale. Within Chinese cities' socio-economic spatial patterns, the different potential environment-health pathways corresponding to different space-based populations remain unclear. Further, limited types of environmental factors have been investigated, while diverse combinations of multiple environments have received less attention. This study thus examined how salient environmental factors may vary across spatial types and the spatial non-stationarity in the health-environmental relationship. Multi-source data characterized Guangzhou's multiple environments, and older adults' health patterns were mapped using self-rated health data. Subsequently, relationships between multi-environmental factors and older adults' health across spatial types were explored by ridge models. The results indicated that (i) There were obvious spatial differences in older adults' health, and significant relationships between multi-environmental factors and older adults' health were observed. (ii) Spatial non-stationarity in such relationships was evident, driven by space-based physicosocial contexts. (iii) Dominant factors notably varied across spatial types. The findings provide space-based planning insights for healthy and age-friendly cities.