Environmental barriers, person-environment fit and mortality among community-dwelling very old people

BMC Public Health

Table 4 The association between environmental barriers generating the most Person-Environment fit problems and mortality (n = 393)

	Model 1		Model 2
Environmental barrier^a	RR	95% CI	RR	95% CI
Outdoors
Path surfaces not level	1.00	0.66-1.52	1.11	0.68-1.81
Refuse room/refuse bin can only be reached via steps	1.42	0.87-2.34	1.73	0.98-3.07
High curbs	1.21	0.91-1.61	1.13	0.79-1.60
No/too few seating places	1.15	0.89-1.50	1.22	0.90-1.67
Inadequate shelter from weather in passenger unloading zone	0.92	0.66-1.28	0.74	0.51-1.08
Entrance
High threshold/level difference/step	0.84	0.59-1.19	0.93	0.61-1.42
High thresholds and/or steps at the entrance	0.97	0.71-1.32	1.04	0.72-1.49
Doors that cannot be fastened in open position	0.95	0.74-1.22	0.81	0.60-1.09
Stairs the only route	0.88	0.68-1.15	0.88	0.65-1.20
No handrails	1.45	1.12-1.88*	1.55	1.14-2.10*
Indoors
Wall-mounted cupboards and shelves placed extremely high	1.23	0.94-1.61	1.44	1.03-2.00
Shelves too deep	1.23	0.87-1.75	1.11	0.73-1.66
Storage areas can only be reached via stairs/threshold^b	1.42	0.86-2.34	1.84	0.95-3.57
No grab bars at shower/bath and/or toilet	0.94	0.74-1.21	0.98	0.73-1.31
Laundry room can only be reached via stairs/threshold^b	0.72	0.52-1.01	0.68	0.46-1.01

Model 1: All the environmental barriers in each housing section are included in the model simultaneously and adjusted for age and sex.
Model 2: All the environmental barriers in each housing section are included in the model simultaneously and adjusted for age, sex, depressive symptoms, cognitive functioning, years of education, monthly income and number of functional limitations.
^aIdentified by means of the weighted environmental barriers function of the Housing Enabler instrument [19, 24], in each housing section listed in falling order, starting with the barrier generating the most person-environment fit problems.
^bDepending on different housing types, this barrier might be located indoors or outdoors.
*Statistically significant after Bonferroni correction.

ISSN: 1471-2458