Later life wellbeing with relation to lifestyle and living environment

Later life wellbeing with relation to lifestyle and living environment
Maintaining wellbeing is an important quality in individuals’ lives and a dominant index in sustainable development policies (Loveridge et al., 2020). Researchers have explored various factors that contribute to wellbeing. In a comprehensive study on this topic, Voukelatou et al. (2021) classify the factors, including safety, health, politics, socioeconomic development, natural environment, human genes (personality), basic universal needs and built environment. The influence of each factor on wellbeing might vary depending on the individual’s age, gender and ethnicity (Western & Tomaszewski, 2016). For older adults, which form a growing global population, two main contributors to overall wellbeing are physical activity and social interaction (Taylor, Buchan, & Van Der Veer, 2019). These two contributors relate to the lifestyle, living environment and health factors of wellbeing. While each later life wellbeing factor has been vastly studied, limited studies have focused on the relationships between these two main contributors and other lifestyle, living environment and health factors. Therefore, we aim to fill in a part of this gap by developing two papers:
Paper 1- The associations between social living environment, physical activity and cognitive functioning in later life
It is well established that cognitive functioning, which includes memory, executive control, processing pace and spatial orientation, usually declines with age (Koen, Srokova, & Rugg, 2020) and is an important component of wellbeing in later life. Family history as well as several neighbourhood and lifestyle factors are associated with the speed of cognitive decline. For instance, evidence shows that regular physical activity has positive effect on cognitive functioning and wellbeing (Mandolesi et al., 2018). Also, the density of social institution resources (such as community centres) in neighbourhood has positive influence on activities which are beneficial for cognitive health (Clarke et al., 2012). Moreover, the level of urbanity can have advantages and disadvantages for residents’ cognitive functioning (Weden, Shih, Kabeto, & Langa, 2018). The relationship between living environment characteristics, physical activities, social life and cognitive functioning is not comprehensively studied.
A growing body of literature is focusing on the influence of living environment characteristics on various aspects of mental health. Examples include the associations between noise and air pollution and cognitive functioning (Paul, Haan, Mayeda, & Ritz 2019; Zhang, Chen, & Zhang 2018) the influence of local income on psychological health (Rijnks, Koster, & McCann, 2019) and the influence of urbanity on cardio-metabolic and mental health (Zijlema, Klijs, Stolk, & Rosmalen, 2015). Research has evidenced the positive effect of social activities on some cognitive functioning, such as verbal abilities, global cognition and overall executive functioning (Kelly et al. 2017;  Brown et al. 2012). Today’s older adults have fewer children in comparison to their last generation and the children usually do not live with their parents. This can result  in a lower possibility of social interaction in the family. Access to the other social facilities, such as community centres, can be a replacement for those who have smaller (or no) family social support. However, limited studies have focused on the relationship between access to the social facilities in the living environment and cognitive functioning. Clarke et al. (2012) suggest that social facilities in the neighbourhood can provide resources for cognitive health. The access to facilities can be influenced by the existence of the facilities in everyday living environment and the mental and physical ability to commute to the facilities. These two main determinants of access might be different between urban and rural areas.
The Netherlands is among countries with the highest population density (Statista, 2021). This population majorly lives in urban areas, especially in Northern Netherlands, and therefore many rural areas have faced depopulation and ageing (Ubels, Bock, & Haartsen, 2020). Christiaanse (2020) in a study on the Northern Netherlands concludes that access to social facilities might decline in the depopulated rural areas, especially for people who have less mobility opportunities. There is a debate about the influences of depopulation on physical activity. For instance, Van Cauwenberg et al. (2011) discover that rural areas might influence the level of physical activity in older adults in both positive and negative ways when rural areas provide more safety for walking and cycling, less access to public transport and variety of facilities and more access to natural areas. 
According to the above discussions, on the one hand, living environment can influence both cognitive functioning and social and physical activities and on the other hand, social and physical activities also influence the cognitive functioning. Therefore, our study aims to investigate the role of physical activities as moderator in the relationship between the social living environment and cognitive functioning in later life (Figure 1).
 
Figure 1. Direct and mediated relationships between the social living environment, physical activities and cognitive functioning for older adults who have a small family 
It is worth mentioning that the level of cognitive functioning can also influence the level of physical activities. Exploring this relationship, however, is beyond the scope of this project.
Paper 2- A longitudinal analysis of physical activities and social functioning of informal caregiver older adults: a comparative study between caregiver and non-caregiver older adults in Northern Netherlands
As it was mentioned in the previous paper idea, the global population is ageing and also having smaller family sizes. For instance, it is estimated that in 2050 in the Netherlands there will be more people living alone, with no children or only one child (Statistics Netherlands, 2007). With the policies of ageing at home instead of moving to the care facilities (Fernández-Carro 2016), older adults will not only be the care receivers at home, but also they might be involved in giving informal care to their spouses, other family members, friends or neighbours. Therefore, it is necessary to realise how caregiving influences the health and wellbeing of older adults. This paper will provide information about supporting caregiving families and contribute to policies which promote healthy ageing at home. 
Informal caregiving is a form of unpaid help to an impaired person (usually a family member or a friend) who is not able to handle everyday tasks (Uccheddu, Gauthier, Steverink, & Emery, 2019). Caregiving is a stressful and demanding activity, specifically for older adults (O'Sullivan et al., 2019), yet, limited studies focus on the change in the wellbeing of older adults who are caregivers. Older adults need to maintain high levels of social functioning and physical activities to stay well (Taylor, Buchan, & Van Der Veer, 2019). Moreover, various factors associate with the general wellbeing of informal caregivers, among which Willert and Minnotte (2021) indicate ethnicity, gender, income, education and number of hours spent with the care-receiver; and Díaz, Estévez, Momeñe and Ozerinjauregi (2019) mention the social support. 
We hypothesize that the two wellbeing factors social functioning and physical activities change differently throughout the time for older adults who give care in comparison to other older adults. The family size and distribution of the caregiving burden is also an important factor in caregiving. Therefore, our research aims to investigate the changes in social functioning and physical activities of caregiver older adults with various family sizes compared to other older adults with the same family size in Northern Netherlands. Also, we assume that these changes depend on demographic and personal characteristics of the older adults, such as gender, ethnicity, income and education.