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Zhaowen Cheng

Bio: Zhaowen Cheng is an academic researcher. The author has contributed to research in topics: Rural area. The author has an hindex of 1, co-authored 1 publications receiving 4 citations.
Topics: Rural area

Papers
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Testing the independent and combined impact of social cohesion and geographic locale (urban/rural) on quality of life (QoL) for older adults in China suggested that programs and policies that strengthen social cohesion through older adults’ community involvement, especially in urban areas, will help to enhance QoL.
Abstract: Objectives: To test the independent and combined impact of social cohesion and geographic locale (urban/rural) on quality of life (QoL) for older adults in China. Using conditional process analysis, we tested three hypotheses: (1) QoL will be lower for persons living alone than those who live with family; (2) social cohesion will mediate the association of living arrangement and QoL; and (3) geographic locale will moderate direct and indirect pathways in the mediation model. Design: Cross-sectional data from WHO Study on Global Aging and Adult Health (SAGE) (China, Wave 1, 2007–2010). Setting: National probability sample of 74 primary sampling units in China, 32 in urban, and 32 in rural areas. Participants: A total of 9,663 adults aged 50 years and older. Measurements: We measured QOL with the 8-item version of the WHOQOL-Bref; living arrangement as alone versus with family; and social cohesion with an 9-item index of frequency of a range of social activities in the previous 12 months. We controlled for sociodemographic characteristics and health and mental health variables in multivariate analyses. Results: Data supported the first two hypotheses; however, the mediating effects of social cohesion held only in urban areas. Conclusion: This study advances the large body of work on living arrangements and well-being of older adults in China. Social cohesion contributed to better QoL regardless of living arrangement, and cohesion mediated the association of living arrangement and QOL in urban but not rural areas. Programs and policies that strengthen social cohesion through older adults’ community involvement, especially in urban areas, will help to enhance QoL.

21 citations


Cited by
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Wang et al. as mentioned in this paper explored the predictive effects of demographic characteristics, health behavior, health status, family relations, social relations, and subjective attitude on depression in rural and urban disabled elderly to improve early depression symptom recognition.
Abstract: With global aging, the number of elderly with physical disabilities is also increasing. Compared with the ordinary elderly, the elderly who lose their independence are more likely to have the symptoms of depression. Reducing depression may help to alleviate the disability process of those who find themselves in the disabled stages. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore the predictive effects of demographic characteristics, health behavior, health status, family relations, social relations, and subjective attitude on depression in rural and urban disabled elderly to improve early depression symptom recognition.A total of 1460 older adults aged 60 and disabled were selected from China Family Panel Studies (CFPS). Depression was assessed according to The Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D). This paper used the random forest classifier to predict the depression of the disabled elderly from six aspects: demographic characteristics, health status, health behavior, family relationship, and social relationship. The prediction model was established based on 70% of the training set and 30% of the test set. The depression rate of rural disabled elderly was 57.67%, and that of urban disabled elderly was 44.59%. The mean values of the 10-k cross-validated results were 0.71 in rural areas and 0.70 in urban areas. AUC:0.71, specificity: 65.3%, sensitivity: 80.6% for rural disabled elderly with depression; AUC:0.78, specificity: 78.1%, sensitivity: 64.2% for urban disabled elderly with depression, respectively. There are apparent differences in the top ten predictors between rural and urban disabled elderly. The common predictors were self-rated health, changing in perceived health, disease or accidence experience within the past 2 weeks, life satisfaction, trusting people, BMI, and having trust in the future. Non-common predictors were chronic diseases, neighborly relations, total medical expenses within 1 year, community emotion, sleep duration, and family per capita income. Using random forest data to predict the depression of the disabled elderly may lead to early detection of depression.

9 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper , a mediating model is adopted to study the causal effect between energy poverty and subjective well-being through the OLS and 2SLS methods using carefully selected instrumental variables to overcome potential endogeneity.
Abstract: Energy poverty is a serious problem worldwide that negatively impacts the subjective well-being of elderly residents. This paper aims to explore this relationship. Firstly, based on 2011, 2013, 2015, and 2018 data of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) launched by Peking University for 125 prefecture-level cities, representing 32,490 observations, this paper effectively and multidimensionally measures the level of individual energy poverty. Secondly, a mediating model is adopted to study the causal effect between energy poverty and subjective well-being through the OLS and 2SLS methods using carefully selected instrumental variables to overcome potential endogeneity. Finally, through a variety of robustness tests, the stability of the above causal effects is verified. The results show that energy poverty negatively affects senior citizens' subjective well-being. Health, depression level, and household food expenditure level can be used as the micro mechanism between the two variables. The above factors have a greater impact on those senior citizens with low educational backgrounds, from relatively low-income families, living alone, and having an urban household registration.

9 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Wang et al. as mentioned in this paper examined the relationship between social capital, perceived neighborhood environment, and depressive symptoms among older adults living in rural China, and the moderating effect of self-rated health (SRH) in these relationships.
Abstract: OBJECTIVES This study examined the relationships between social capital, perceived neighborhood environment, and depressive symptoms among older adults living in rural China, and the moderating effect of self-rated health (SRH) in these relationships. PARTICIPANTS A quota sampling method was applied to recruit 447 participants aged 60 years and older in rural communities in Jilin province, China in 2019. MEASUREMENTS Depressive symptoms were measured by the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale. Structural equation modeling was used to build latent constructs of social capital and test the proposed model. Multiple group analysis was used to test the moderation effects. RESULTS Cognitive social capital and structural social capital were both associated with depressive symptoms controlling for participants' demographics, socioeconomic status, and health status. After adding perceived environment variables in the model, the relationship between cognitive social capital and depressive symptoms became nonsignificant, while structural social capital remained became a significant factor (β = -.168, p < .01). Satisfaction with health care was significantly associated with depressive symptoms among those with poor SRH (β = -.272, p < .01), whereas satisfaction with security and transportation were strongly associated with depressive symptoms among those with good SRH (security: β = -.148, p < .01; transportation: β = -.174, p < .01). CONCLUSIONS Study findings highlighted the importance of social capital and neighborhood environment as potential protective factors of depressive symptoms in later life. Policy and intervention implications were also discussed.

7 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Encouraging adult Chinese patients with LOPD to be socially active and help them become more involved in social life might improve their quality of life (QOL), and being employed was found to affect the QOL in almost all dimensions.
Abstract: Pompe disease (PD) is a rare inherited disorder caused by the deficiency of acid-α glucosidase, which leads to the impairment of organ and tissue functions and causes disabilities. As the first national survey on patients with late-onset PD (LOPD) in China, this study investigated the quality of life (QOL) of adult patients with LOPD in China and explored its contributors. Data were derived from a nation-based, cross-sectional, self-response survey on rare diseases (RDs) in early 2018. Answers from 68 adult Chinese patients with LOPD were used for data analysis. QOL was measured using the World Health Organization Quality of Life: Brief Version. Covariates included age, gender, education, employment, reliance on assistive devices, medication history, social support, and disease economic burden. Data were analyzed using linear regression in R. For adult patients with LOPD, the average scores and standard deviations (SD) of the four dimensions of QOL were physical health = 33.77 (SD = 18.28), psychological health = 43.81 (SD = 21.70), environmental health = 39.43 (SD = 16.93), and social relationship = 46.20 (SD = 19.76); the scoring for each dimension was evaluated on a scale of 0 to 100. At the significance level of p < 0.05, with increasing age, the patients experienced a significant decrease in physical health QOL (β = − 0.75) and environmental health QOL (β = − 0.79). Those who relied heavily on assistive devices had lower perceived physical health (β = − 17.8), psychological health (β = − 22.76), environmental health (β = − 17.8), and social relationships (β = − 22.12) than those who did not. A one-unit increase in the amount of social support, as a form of social interaction, led to a significant increase in physical health (β = 0.28), psychological health (β = 0.71), environmental health (β = 0.72), and social relationships (β = 0.70). Adult Chinese patients with LOPD had a lower physical health and QOL compared to their counterparts with other RDs. Being employed was found to affect the QOL of adult Chinese patients with LOPD in almost all dimensions. Encouraging adult Chinese patients with LOPD to be socially active and help them become more involved in social life might improve their QOL.

7 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper examined whether cohesion varies significantly across rural and urban contexts and whether place-based poverty is related to cohesion similarly in each context, and found that local poverty significantly predicted one item, trust, in rural communities and the cohesion index and all of its components in urban communities.
Abstract: Despite longstanding ideas in sociology and related disciplines that hold rural life as being more communal and harmonious, little is known about the ways that social cohesion is defined or distributed in rural versus urban places. Stemming largely from scholarship on urban neighborhood inequality and concentrated disadvantage, as well as subsequent offshoots of collective efficacy theory, studies of place-based cohesion have been largely urban-centric. In this study we seek to examine whether cohesion varies significantly across rural and urban contexts and whether place-based poverty is related to cohesion similarly in each context. We expand beyond local studies to use data from the 2016 Missouri Crime Victimization Survey (N = 1873), which contains strong rural and urban samples, and is broadly representative of the state of Missouri—a state in which the population is approximately 30 percent rural—to examine these questions. Descriptive statistics show the social cohesion index, neighbors’ willingness to help, and perceptions of them being close knit and trusted as being significantly higher in rural communities, but that perceptions that neighbors get along and share the same values did not significantly differ. Local poverty significantly predicted one item, trust, in rural communities and the cohesion index and all of its components in urban communities. After including controls, coefficients on poverty retained significance for trust in rural communities and for four of six outcomes in urban ones, but they did not differ significantly across groups in equality of coefficients tests. Poverty was most strongly and consistently associated with perceptions of trust in both locales. Results contribute to a more refined understanding of the ways that social cohesion is conceptualized in different places, and the extent to which poverty plays into residents’ perceptions.

7 citations