Background: The built environment quality of neighborhoods has a significant impact on the health of the elderly. Although there has been a wealth of studies on low-density Western cities, research on the impacts of built environment on elderly health in high-density Chinese cities is far from sufficient. The pathways by which the built environment affects elderly health remain to be observed, particularly whether such pathways vary for different ages and genders.Methods: Based on the data of the “Fourth Survey on the Living Conditions of the Elderly in China” in 2015, a sample survey of 3,360 older adults, aged 60 years and over, in Beijing was conducted. We first explored the built environment factors that affect elderly health with a multilevel regression model. We then adopted a multilevel structural equation model (MSEM) to reveal the mediating effect of health activities. Moreover, a stratified analysis was applied to explore the impact of age and gender heterogeneity on the relationship between built environment and elderly health.Results: (1) Neighborhood-built environment measured within a 500 m buffer area had a higher correlation with elderly health when compared with other areas. (2) Physical activity and social interaction played a mediating role in the correlation between the built environment and elderly health. Even if the interference of residential self-selection was controlled within the subgroups, majority of the built environment elements had significant impacts on elderly health. (3) The impacts of built environment variables on elderly health vary among different age and gender groups. Population density mainly promoted elderly health through health activities in the middle-aged (aged 70–79) group and high-aged (aged 80+) group, and shorter distance to transit stations affects health by promoting the social interaction among high-aged males (aged 80+) group compared to with other groups, and high-quality built environment significantly promotes physical activity to alleviate loneliness only in elderly females.Conclusion: To effectively boost elderly health by improving the quality of the built environment, adequate considerations should also be given to the differentiated demands of adults of different age and gender groups, precise health behavior interventions should be provided, and the construction of personalized aging-friendly and livable spatial environments should be emphasized to realize healthy and active aging.

Inter-regional health differences and apparent inequalities in China have recently received significant attention. By collecting health status data and individual socio-economic information from the 2015 fourth sampling survey of the elderly population in China (4th SSEP), this paper uses the geographical differentiation index to reveal the spatial differentiation of health inequality among Chinese provinces. We test the determinants of inequalities by multilevel regression models at the provincial and individual levels, and find three main conclusions: 1) There were significant health differences on an inter-provincial level. For example, provinces with a very good or good health rating formed a good health hot-spot region in the Yangtze River Delta, versus elderly people living in Gansu and Hainan provinces, who had a poor health status. 2) Nearly 2.4% of the health differences in the elderly population were caused by inter-provincial inequalities; access (or lack of access) to economic, medical and educational resources was the main reason for health inequalities. 3) At the individual level, inequalities in annual income served to deepen elderly health differences, and elderly living in less developed areas were more vulnerable to urban vs. rural-related health inequalities.

The study investigates the global impact of land property rights on land use efficiency (LUE), as measured by the key indicator for United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 11.3.1, namely Land Consumption Rate to Population Growth Rate. By utilizing human-land change data from 165 countries spanning the period between 1990 and 2020, we have developed a fixed effects model and employed legal origins as an instrumental variable to examine the influence of land property rights security on LUE. Our findings demonstrate that the security of land property rights significantly influences LUE, with common law countries exhibiting higher levels of LUE compared to civil law countries while controlling for other variables. Stability in property rights encourages long-term investments in infrastructure and sustainable land management practices, thereby enhancing land productivity and mitigating urban sprawl. Furthermore, safeguarding property rights limits governments’ power to expropriate lands, facilitating rational and efficient land transactions that contribute towards achieving Sustainable Development Goals.

With the unprecedented urbanization during the past three decades, air quality in many Chinese cities has been a serious issue which poses great challenges for urban sustainability. This study examines the health consequences of development patterns in China by establishing the linkage between urban form, air pollution level, and cardiorespiratory mortality rate. We assembled a dataset by compiling a series of variables from multiple sources, including China’s Disease Surveillance Points (DSP) system, which forms a nationally representative sample of mortality for the year 2005, Chinese census, satellite imagery, and the Chinese National Land Use Database. After controlling for local climate, demography, socioeconomics, and other pollution factors, this study finds that urban form elements (e.g., urban density, fragmentation level, forest/green space ratio) have significant influences on PM_2.5 (atmospheric particulate matter with a diameter of less than 2.5 micrometers) concentration, thus influencing the incidence of cardiorespiratory mortality at the county level. These results may help explain how the type and pattern of development shape public health by influencing air quality and form an evidence-based land use policy to improve environmental quality and public health.

Summary: As community respondents to disease prevention and control, social workers faced extreme demands and challenges during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. Based on data collected from 762 social workers in Beijing's urban area in 2022, this study conducts a moderated mediation model with Bootstrapping analysis to investigate how their effort-reward imbalance influences their work engagement and what role professional identity and perceived performance appraisal play in this relationship. Findings: The results show that when social workers perceive an effort-reward imbalance, their professional identities become weaker, and their work engagement decreases to avoid aggravating the imbalance. In addition, a top–down designed and controlling performance appraisal can enlarge this relationship. Applications: Social workers, as the frontline respondents to the pandemic where high efforts are unavoidable, should be granted more rewards to correct the effort-reward imbalance. Also, any management measures, including performance management or appraisal, shall be fairly designed as a useful source, helping social workers’ improvement and acknowledging their efforts, rather than merely imposing control.