"The purpose of my dissertation research is to examine the far-reaching influence of physical activity practices among older Chinese people, in both their own community and in urban public life. The overarching research question, therefore, is two-fold: (1) How do social spatial environments influence older people's self-care practices and thus influence their health and wellbeing; and (2) How do the self-care practices of older people shape the social spatial spaces of aging in neoliberal urban China, in return? To answer these questions, I utilized a mixed-methods approach in two study sites, Laolongyan neighborhoods in Huainan City, a mid-sized city in China and Mudanyuan neighborhoods in Beijing, the capital and a large city in China. This research consists of three objectives to address the goal of the dissertation. Each objective is a separate study representing an article in the dissertation. The first article examines the bi-directional relationships between physical activity and chronic disease in an older population in China. Drawing on a six-year longitudinal health survey data of older people in four neighborhoods in Huainan City and survival analysis and multilevel logistic regression, this study revealed that health disparities among older people may widen as those sedentary experience earlier onsets of chronic diseases and worse health trajectories, compared to more physically active people. The second article examines the pathways by which physical activity behaviors are impacted by the social and physical aspects of the built environment. Combining the Social Ecological Model and the Stage of Behavior Change Model within a mixed-method approach, I found (a) that the liveliness of an apartment building is important in attracting sedentary older adults to initiate physical activity; (b) housing closeness to urban functional spaces is associated with the initiation of physical activity through social networks of neighbors; and (c) social networks of neighbors is the most important factor in regulating physical activity. The third article investigates physical activity spaces simultaneously as therapeutic and public spaces. Engaging with a combination of the concepts of therapeutic landscapes and public spaces, my case studies in Huainan and Beijing demonstrate the possibility and synergies of combining the two complementary approaches, -i.e., to help put health into public and build therapeutic landscapes for all. This article also demonstrates the possible active role of older groups in the making of therapeutic public urban spaces in China. In summary, through this dissertation research, I demonstrated that the differential social and physical environments led by the commercialized health care and health promotion services markets can make a change in physical activities among older people, and therefore widen the health disparity among older people with different behavior patterns. In return, the older group occupies their physical activity practices and plays an active role in exploring and constructing their therapeutic and public spaces. Tackling the problem of increasing health inequality within the rapid demographic and social transitions in urban China requires considering the health and wellbeing of all social groups and deconstructing the subjectivity of vulnerable groups, particularly the older population. This dissertation enriches the discussions of the health belief model and built environment effects on health, and expands the theoretical and field boundaries of therapeutic landscapes and public spaces to define therapeutic public spaces."--Pages ii-iii.
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