There is renewed interest in the role of the built environment in public health. Relatively little research to date investigates its impact on healthy ageing. Ageing in place has been adopted as a key strategy for coping with the challenges of longevity. What is needed is a better understanding of how individual characteristics of older people’s residential environments (from front door to wider neighbourhood) contribute to their wellbeing, in order to provide the basis for evidence-based housing/urban design and development of interventions.
Burton, E, Mitchell L and Stride C (2011). Good places for ageing in place: development of
objective built environment measures for investigating links with older people’s wellbeing. BMC Public Health, 11(1), pp 1.