As an environmental gerontologist, Sojung Park aims to expand knowledge of person-environment dynamics that can redress disparities in health and well-being in old age. Park hopes her research findings can be used to identify an optimal fit between aging individuals’ needs and environmental resources, and also to modify and mobilize the right resources.
To identify an optimal fit between the person and environment, Park examines various aspects of vulnerability in old age (e.g., poverty, living alone, multiple chronic medical conditions) as risk factors for health, well-being and health care use (e.g., preventable emergency care use and repeated hospitalization), and various dimensions of living environment (e.g., social, physical, and service environment, home and neighborhood environment).
Her longitudinal research has examined subjective health, hospitalization and nursing home admission. Also, her cross-cultural studies have examined the multi-dimensional characteristics of an age-friendly environment as related to well-being among socio-culturally vulnerable elders. As a faculty scholar of the
Institute for Public Health, Park also collaborates with public health researchers.
