Quality of Life among Low-Income Older Residents in Subsidized Senior Housing: Rural vs. Suburban Comparisons

Abstract

Older adults living in subsidized senior housing tend to be at risk for poor psychological well-being related to their advanced age and low income. This study aims to explore multilevel factors affecting perceived quality of life (QoL) among non-urban subsidized senior housing residents and to compare these factors between rural and suburban communities. Community/residential-level data were collected from the interviews with residential service coordinators (RSC) of five subsidized senior housing communities in the New England region: two rural and three suburban communities. Individual-and interpersonal-level data came from the survey with 82 residents. A mixed-methods approach was utilized. We used thematic content analyses for the interview data and multivariate ordered logit regression for the survey data. Our results showed that rural residence was positively associated with QoL (OR = 4.913, p