Loneliness is a common experience among older people that is associated with health risks and negative well-being. As a psychological phenomenon, it has typically been defined in Western research literature as the discrepancy between desired and actual interpersonal relations. In our qualitative study in Hong Kong, we offer insight into ageing and loneliness in an urban environment of the non-Western world and propose to reconceptualise loneliness by exploring older people’s experience of alienation at the societal level as an important but often neglected dimension of their loneliness. Thirty-seven community-dwelling, Chinese adults aged 65 and above were interviewed in focus groups and their accounts analysed and interpreted using a phenomenological approach. Findings revealed that focus group participants perceived insufficient care for older people, a growing distance between themselves and society, and their disintegrating identity in society to be primary sources of societal alienation. In response, older people adopted a more passive lifestyle, attributed marginalisation and inequality to old age, and developed negative feelings including unease towards ageing, vulnerability and helplessness, and anger. The emergence of these key components and underlying themes of societal alienation illuminated neglected facets of the psychological phenomenon of loneliness and highlighted new implications for policy, practice, and research from a societal perspective to address older people’s loneliness in urban settings.

Background: Suicide is one of the leading causes of death in children and youth. Using a sample of fatal suicides among school-aged students in Hong Kong, this study aimed to demonstrate how the classification of children and adolescent suicides into distinct subgroups using cluster analysis can alert us to the heterogeneous nature of the student suicide population and increase our understanding of multidimensional underlying causes. Methods: Deaths by suicide of Hong Kong primary and secondary school students occurring between 2013–16 were identified. Reports were acquired from the Coroner’s Court, Police Force, and Education Bureau in Hong Kong. Information about students’ sociodemographic characteristics, suicide circumstances, stressors, and risk factors was extracted and organized for analysis. Based on the indicated stressors (school, family, close relationship, social challenge, finance, risk behaviour, suicide exposure, others) and risk factors (health and mental health, history of self-harm, suicidality, and psychological maladjustment), cluster analysis was conducted to derive distinct profiles of student suicides. Results: A four-cluster solution was found. Patterns of stressors, risk factors, background characteristics and suicide circumstances within each cluster were examined. Four distinct and meaningful profiles of student suicides were characterised as “school distress”, “hidden”, “family and relationship”, and “numerous issues”. Conclusions: Findings highlighted the need to approach student suicides in meaningfully differentiated ways. Gathering suicide report data and generating evidence that advances our knowledge of student suicide profiles are important steps towards early identification and intervention.

This chapter revisits the Global Age-Friendly City project and its local implementation with a reference to Hong Kong, where population ageing becomes critical due to the high density, unreasonable costs for living, lack of sociable spaces, and impacts from climate variability and its extremes. We argue that it is important to maximize ways to collect their real experience in urban living and present their visions for creating an ‘absolute space’ (Lefebvre, 1991) conducive to older people’s positive social functioning and psychological well-being. A place audit was conducted in the Tai Po district of Hong Kong, in light of the key principles of the mixed methods research methodology. Accordingly, 283 residents aged 65 and above living in Tai Po were interviewed, using a 53-item questionnaire covering the eight domains of World Health Organization’s age-friendly city checklist. Besides, three focus groups were conducted with a view to capturing older people’s experience, concerns, and specific issues that received little discussion elsewhere. The quantitative analysis suggests that transportation and outdoor spaces and buildings ranked at the top, while the community support and health services, civic participation and employment scored the lowest in Tai Po. Further, we observed that older people mostly played a passive role across all eight domains, with little evidence of attempts to effect changes in their community life. Future urban planning should not only satisfy older people’s needs but also be congenial to reshaping the people–environment relation so as to enable their intrinsic capacity to pursue a healthy and active life.