Feeling about living arrangements and associated health outcomes among older adults in India: a cross-sectional study

INTRODUCTION: Advancement in the field of gerontology has been concerned with the well-being of older adults in a family setup that is associated with caregiving and support. While family life and well-being are defined by emotion, caregiving, and support activities, dissatisfaction/discontent with living arrangements is a public health concern, which is increasing with a rise in the proportion of the older population in the country. The study examines the association of dissatisfaction with living arrangements with health outcomes among older men and women in India. METHODS: The present research used data from the 'Building a Knowledge Base on Population Aging in India'. The effective sample size for the analysis was 9181 older adults. Descriptive statistics and bivariate analysis were performed to present the preliminary estimates. For finding the association between various health outcomes over explanatory variables, binary logistic regression model was used separately for men and women. RESULTS: About 22.8% of men and 30.8% of women who were living alone were dissatisfied with their present living arrangement. It was revealed that both men and women who were dissatisfied with their present living arrangements had significantly higher odds of experiencing poor self-rated health [OR:4.45, 3.25 ~ 6.09 and OR:3.32, 2.54 ~ 4.34], low psychological health [OR: 2.15, 1.61 ~ 2.86 and OR: 1.99, 1.57 ~ 2.53], low subjective well-being [OR: 3.37, 2.54 ~ 4.45 and OR: 3.03, 2.36 ~ 3.38], low ADL [OR: 1.77, 1.2 ~ 2.62 and OR: 1.59, 1.17 ~ 2.18, low IADL] [OR: 1.32, 1.03 ~ 1.69 and OR: 1.57, 1.24 ~ 1.98] and low cognitive ability [OR: 1.26, 0.98 ~ 1.61 and OR:1.44, 1.13 ~ 1.82] in comparison to their counterpart from men and women respectively. CONCLUSION: It is found that dissatisfaction with the living arrangement of older men and women is negatively associated with major health outcomes. Hence, appropriate policies and programs must be developed to promote increased family care and support and an improved residential environment that would create a feeling of comfort and happiness among older individuals. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12889-021-11342-2.