Environmental barriers and housing accessibility problems over a one-year period in later life in three European countries

The objective of this study was to describe environmental barriers and investigate the nature of accessibility problems in housing among single-living, very old people (N = 1,150) in urban regions in three European countries (Sweden, Germany, Latvia), in a one-year perspective. A specific feature of this study is the explicit conceptual differentiation between environmental barriers and accessibility problems, underlying the presentation of the following results: Environmental barriers were very common, and in all three national samples the 20 most prevalent environmental barriers were found in 77-98% of all dwellings investigated. The magnitudes of accessibility problems were similar among the three samples and did not change over one year, while differences were indicated in the types of environmental barriers generating accessibility problems.