Association of home and community-based services and cognitive function of Chinese older adults: social participation as a mediator

BACKGROUND: This study makes an effort to examine the impact of home and community-based services on maintaining cognitive function and understand the mediating effect of social participation on the relationship of community services and older adults’ cognitive function in China. METHOD: The empirical data comes from the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS). A total of 38,582 (person-time) respondents were gathered for this study. The two-way fixed effects regression model is used to estimate the associations between independent variables, mediating variables and cognitive ability after controlling for socio-demographic, family responsibility, and time variables. RESULT: This study has confirmed that participating in daily and social activities is associated with the cognitive functions of Chinese older adults. Social participation can stimulate cognition. Active participation in outdoor activities, doing housework or taking care of kids, daily playing cards or mah-jong, reading books and newspapers, watching TV, and listening to the radio can significantly promote the cognitive ability of older adults. In addition, the findings have indicated the importance of community services for older adults. This study shows personal daily care services, legal aid services, health education services, as well as dealing with family and neighborhood disputes have a positive effect on maintaining older adults’ cognitive functions. Meanwhile, the provision of door-to-door medical services hurts their cognitive functions. This study also illustrates that community-based services can increase the level of older adults’ social participation, and then enhance their level of cognitive function. CONCLUSION: This study can inform service provision agencies to develop targeted programs to support older adults’ continued engagement.