Investigation and Analysis on Travel and Health of the Elderly in the Old Residential Areas in Beijing

In the context of aging, community has become the main activity place for the elderly, and their daily travel is closely related to their health. This paper aims to understand the overall travel and activity characteristics, health level of the elderly with different attributes in the old residential areas, the relationship between travel conditions and health level, the difficulties faced by daily travel and suggestions to improve the travel environment and health level of the elderly. Three old residential areas in Chaoyang District, Beijing were selected to investigate 15 elderly people on their daily travel, activities and health in the form of observation, questionnaire and interview. The survey results show that the daily travel modes of the elderly mainly include walking, cycling and public transportation. About 1 / 3 of the elderly need auxiliary tools. About 80% of the elderly suffer from diseases and 20% of the elderly have normal body mass index(BMI). The self-rated mental health (MSH) of the elderly is the best. The relationship between the average activity duration of the elderly and their health level under different travel conditions is mainly shown as follows: with the increase of travel time per trip, the outdoor activity duration of the elderly shows a trend of "first increase and then decrease", the number of diseases decreases, and the average BMI fluctuate. The next step is to expand the research scope and explore the travel and health status of the elderly in different community types, so as to provide basis for improving the travel environment and the health of the elderly.