Spatial matching between urban green-space services and older adults’ potential health-support needs: a community-scale assessment

Introduction Urban green space provision may not match the needs of aging populations. Methods To evaluate this mismatch, this study used 486 communities in Fuzhou, China as samples, integrating park accessibility, street-level visible greenery, and neighborhood vegetation exposure into a community green-space service index (C-GSI). Concurrently, the aging rate, floor-area ratio, housing price, and other contextual factors were grouped into a contextual support-need vulnerability index (C-HVI), with the ratio of these two indices forming the community green-space health-support equity index (C-GHEI). Building upon this, methods including quartile classification, Local Moran’s I, and Getis-Ord Gi* were employed to characterize the spatial pattern of relative matching between green-space services and needs. Results The results indicate 122 high-relative-deprivation communities in the study area, with spatial analysis identifying 33 high-high clusters and 70 cold spots. Through multidimensional screening, 62 communities were classified as Priority I, 68 as Priority II, 113 as Priority III, and 243 for general maintenance. Furthermore, park accessibility exhibited the strongest individual explanatory power for the matching degree (q=0.734), and its joint explanatory power with the aging rate increased to 0.817. Discussion This framework effectively identifies key areas with mismatches between environmental support and the needs of the elderly population, providing a spatial screening tool for planning-oriented green space optimization.