How Do Sense of Place and Perceived Restorativeness Affect Psychological Benefits from Urban Green Spaces for Older Adults? A Cross-Sectional Study

With the intensifying trend of population aging, the positive effects of Urban Green Space (UGS) on Psychological Well-being (PW) among older adults have garnered increasing attention. Previous studies examined the unidirectional pathways through which objective UGS exposure indicators influenced PW via Sense of Place (SOP) or Perceived Restorativeness (PR). However, little empirical work has addressed how UGS exposure affects PW in older adults through a dual mediation pathway encompassing both SOP and PR. To address this gap, this study investigated representative urban parks in Fuzhou, China. Using the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI) as objective exposure indicators, along with survey data capturing older adults’ perceived characteristics (PC) of UGS, SOP, and PR, we developed a multilevel structural equation model to explore how NDVI, NDWI, and PC influence PW through the dual mediators of SOP and PR. Results indicated that (1) NDVI and PC influence PW either directly or indirectly via the mediators SOP and PR, with PC exhibiting a significantly stronger effect than NDVI; (2) NDWI has no significant effect on SOP and PW, but it indirectly influences PW through PR; (3) PR moderated the link between SOP and PW; (4) under the dual-pathway mechanism, PR contributes more substantially to PW than SOP. This study enriches the understanding of how UGS contributes to PW and advocates for integrating exposure characteristics, place qualities, and restorative elements into the framework of age-friendly city planning to guide targeted health interventions for the elderly. Moreover, SOP–PR insights from an East Asian city inform global aging urbanism.