Centre for Policy on Ageing



Conducting research on home environments — lessons learned and new directions
Author(s)	Laura N Gitlin
Journal title	The Gerontologist, vol 43, no 5, October 2003
Pages	pp 628-637
Source	http://www.geron.org
Keywords	Housing [elderly] ; Amenities ; Architectural design ; Research.
Annotation	The study of home environments is a research domain in the field of environmental gerontology (EG) that considers issues related to ageing in place. Despite the importance of ageing at home, there are few recent studies in this area, and most are descriptive and lack theoretical direction. This article examines the current state of research on home environments, from which methodological challenges and new directions for further research are identified. Three broad questions are posed. First, what should we measure and why in home environments? Second, how do older people and their family members use the home environment in health, illness and caregiving? Third, what are the interrelationships between the home environment, psychological well-being and daily functioning throughout the ageing process? The home environment offers a testing ground for generic environmental constructs and their measurement as well as a unique setting from which understandings and constructs of person-environment fit can emerge. (RH).
Accession Number	CPA-040504212 A
Classmark	KE: R8: YB3: 3A
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...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing.