Housing Influences on Active Aging: Perspectives from African Immigrant Elders in Chicago's South Side

The quality of housing and the surrounding environment have been shown to have a significant impact on the health and well-being of older adults. This is especially relevant for immigrant populations, where poor housing conditions can lead to mobility limitations, social isolation, and stress, which contribute to unhealthy lifestyle choices and declining health. While active aging has been proposed as a promising approach to enhance health outcomes among the general population, its relevance for immigrants who often reside in suboptimal urban housing environments remains largely unexplored. This study aims to investigate the factors in urban housing environments that contribute to inactiveness among African immigrant older adults in the United States, with the goal of identifying potential areas for promoting active aging through targeted interventions in the built environment. Employing grounded theory qualitative methodology, this study collected interview data from 30 older adult African immigrants (55+) in diverse housing environments in Chicago's south side. Photographs of the environment were included solely as a visual method, serving as a valuable and context-rich form of qualitative data. Given that most interviews were conducted outside participants' residences, these images provided important contextual insight into the environments being described. Interview recordings were transcribed using NVivo software, cross-checked, and manually corrected for linguistic nuances or occasional native language use before coding. The photographs were analyzed thematically, with attention to environmental cues that supported and enriched the interview data. Four main themes were identified: participants' cultural perceptions, housing barriers to indoor physical activity, neighborhood factors, and social dimension of active aging. Understanding the relationship between housing environments and active aging is crucial for designing effective interventions to enhance lifestyle of aging African diaspora immigrants in the United States. However, obtaining population-specific data is essential to tailor these interventions to the unique needs of individuals within their specific housing environments.