The effect of facilities management of common areas on the environment domain of quality of life or older people in private buildings

The world was facing significant aging challenges. Aging in place has long been advocated which reflected the preference of older people to stay in their own home as long as possible. A huge amount of older people resided in private buildings that consist of both indoor settings (i.e. individual unit flats) and outdoor settings (i.e. common areas like lobby and corridor). The effect of indoor environment on the quality of life of the older people has been investigated, while this paper aims to examine the different effect of common areas environment for the older people.

A questionnaire survey was administered among over 300 older people living in private buildings. Multiple statistical techniques, including reliability test, correlation coefficient and multiple regression models, were used to analyze the collected data to determine the interactions between facilities management of the common areas in private buildings and the environment domain of quality of life for older people.

The final results were concluded based on the congruence of all the statistical results, which covered the identification of facilities management factors in common areas of private buildings that could influence the environment domain of quality of life for older people, including overall environment, health-care accessibility, information acquisition and transportation aspects; the overall environment was positively predicted by space and security in common areas of private building; health-care accessibility was positively affected by space, barrier-free facilities and recreational facilities; the information acquisition was only positively predicted by security; transportation was positively predicted by distance and recreational facilities; and building services of common areas in private buildings had no effect on the environment domain of quality of life for older people.

Practical recommendations have been made to improve the facilities management of common areas in private buildings to ensure the quality of life for older people, including provision of walking assistance, motion or infrared controlled systems and so on. This study contributed to enhance current understanding of the interactions between the older people and their living environment.