Article Text
Abstract
Introduction There is an increasing interest about the influence of the environment on people living in urban areas. Elderly are more vulnerable to changes in the physical and social environment associated to urbanisation. The neighbourhood has an important role in maintaining independence.
Methods We adopted the theoretical model of causal effects of neighbourhood on ageing of Glass & Balfour. The study included 1155 elderly (≥60 years) selected by random sampling. Response variable “functional performance” was developed based on the number of basic and instrumental activities of daily living (ADL) that the elderly found difficult to accomplish. Urban Quality of Life Index (UQLI) was used as the second-level variable. The UQLI domains assume values between zero and one (zero = worst situation; one = the best) Zero-inflated negative binomial multilevel regression model (ZINB Multilevel) was used in the statistical analysis.
Results Functional performance is influenced by urban infrastructure, one of the UQLI domains. Living in a neighbourhood with a infrastructure index ≥0.80 increased by 4.2 times the chance of the elderly to be independent when compared with those living in neighbourhoods with an index <0.80, after controlling for individual level variables. The interclass correlation coefficient for the second-level domain was 0.17, indicating that 17.0% of the variance in functional performance of the elderly may be explained by differences in the infrastructure of the BHMPU.
Conclusion Public intervention programs aiming an improvement in the performances of the elderly must take into account the contribution of urban infrastructure in the neighbourhood.