Search

Community-based care services offered by senior centers are vital for supporting older adults’ independent living. The number of senior centers has escalated in China in recent years. Despite scholarly interest in the potential accessibility of senior centers, research on older adults’ realized access remains scarce. Using the geo-referenced check-in data of 2382 users of senior centers in Nanjing, China, this study aims to fill this gap by examining the disparities between older adults’ potential and realized access to senior centers and the influence of multilevel spatial and non-spatial factors. This study indicates that potential access is often significantly overestimated compared with the actual accessibility of senior centers, with older adults’ distances of realized access (mean = 1319 m) being considerably greater than potential access (mean = 325 m). Spatial and regression analyses confirm that older adults living in newly built, lower-priced houses in the inner city are more likely to travel longer distances to reach senior centers. Spatial proximity is less effective in predicting realized access for those living further from senior centers. Instead, the location and service quality of senior centers play a more prominent role. These findings enrich our understanding of older adults’ access to community-based care, informing planning and policy interventions for the development of age-friendly communities.

As critical infrastructure of age-friendly cities, senior centers are designed to be embedded in communities and facilitate service accessibility for older adults. However, their underutilization is widely documented, suggesting a need to reassess their effectiveness. Existing studies often analyze the issue focusing on socio-demographic factors, overlooking the spatial contexts in which senior centers are embedded and their impacts on older people’s access. This study aims to address the research gap by investigating the spatial embeddedness of senior centers using Space Syntax methods and examining its influence on older people’s access patterns. Using a geo-behavioral dataset collected in Nanjing, China, we find that about 70% of the senior centers in the research area are embedded in highly localized settings with limited connections to global street networks, which significantly restricts the access of older people from wider spatial contexts. This spatial segregation may force senior centers to incur higher costs to attract users, thereby reducing the effectiveness of community-based services. This study introduces a novel spatial perspective to evaluate community-based services, highlighting the critical influence of the spatial context on service accessibility. The findings provide valuable empirical insights for policymakers and planners striving to create age-friendly cities and communities.