Linking green space patterns to elderly stress: The serial roles of greenery perception and physical activity

While studies in developed countries have established associations between community green spaces and mental health, their role through sequential psychosocial pathways in medium-sized aging cities remains less examined. This study proposes a serial mediation framework adapted to medium-sized aging urban settings to examine how multidimensional landscape patterns relate to mental stress (MS) in older adults. Using survey data from 24 communities in Zhaoqing, China, we integrated multi-source metrics-including Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Street Green View Index (GVI), Landscape Splitting Index (SPLIT), Perimeter-Area Fractal Dimension (PAFRAC), Nearest Park Distance (NPD), Number of Parks (NP), and Air Quality Index (AQI). Structural equation modeling was applied to examine the hypothesized pathway involving greenery perception (GP) and physical activity (PA). RESULTS: showed that higher green space complexity and greater park distance were associated with higher levels of mental stress. A key finding was the absence of significant mediation through spatial accessibility in the GP-PA pathway, whereas environmental quality and landscape legibility showed associations through the sequential perception-activity mechanism. These findings suggest that optimizing landscape configuration, enhancing qualitative features, and strengthening greenery perception may be more relevant than proximity alone in supporting mental health in medium-sized cities. This study offers a potential transferable analytical approach for exploring aging-related mental health needs in comparable urban contexts through targeted environmental strategies.