The perception of the young and long-lived elderly 'Gauchos' (from the State of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil) about the public spaces they live in Resumo

• Published in: Ciência & saude coletiva Vol. 20; no. 2; p. 461
• Main Authors: Joel Hirtz do Nascimento Navarro, Francini Porcher Andrade, Tiago Sousa Paiva, Diovana Ourique da Silva, Gessinger, Cristiane Fernanda, Ângelo José Gonçalves Bós
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: Portuguese
• Published: Rio de Janeiro Associação Brasileira de Saúde Coletiva 01-02-2015
• Subjects: Aging; Older people; Perceptions; Public spaces; Urban planning; Brazil
• ISSN: 1413-8123; 1678-4561
• DOI: 10.1590/1413-81232015202.03712014

By 2050, the number of Brazilians living in urban areas will be over 200 million and 29% of the population will be elderly. The long-lived elderly are 80 or more years old and the young elderly are between 60 and 79 years of age. The scope of this article was to verify the difference in perception between the young elderly and the long-lived elderly from Rio Grande do Sul (RS) about the urban environment they live in. This is a population-based, observational, descriptive, retrospective study with a quantitative analysis paradigm. Data was analyzed from Elderly Profile research in RS conducted by the Geriatric and Gerontological Institute of PUCRS in partnership with the RS School of Public Health. The sample consisted of 6913 questionnaires answered by the elderly from 59 cities. Data analysis was performed for each age group and independent variables were processed using the Chi-square test, with p under 0.05. Results showed that the perception of difficulties such as a lack of park benches and safety strips, short traffic light times for pedestrians, high steps and bad-smelling public toilets was greater among the young elderly. The long-lived elderly noticed these facts less, though they admitted that they frequent community environments less often.