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Ageism and Social Integration of Older Adults in Their Neighborhoods in Israel
Design and Methods: A convenience sample that included 300 older adults aged 65 and over and 300 younger people under the age of 65 who resided in three neighborhoods in Tel-Aviv, with varied socio-economic status were interviewed. Kogan’s Attitudes toward Old People scale was used to probe ageism. Social integration index included three dimensions: frequency of participation in activities in the neighborhood, familiarity with neighbors, and sense of neighborhood. Hierarchical regression analyses examined three groups of independent variables: older adults’ socio-demographic characteristics, their perceived health and outdoor mobility, and neighborhoods’ characteristics including level of ageism.
Results: Neighborhoods varied by levels of ageism and social integration. Higher level of social integration of older neighborhoods' residents was explained by a combination of factors: younger age, better self-rated health, and fewer limitations of outdoor mobility, lower levels of ageism reported by a sample of younger respondents, and higher socio-economic status of the neighborhood.
Implications: To enable better social integration intergeneration programs should be developed to decrease ageism and in order to make communities more age-friendly there is need to facilitate accessibility to services and public spaces