Well-being and mental health among older people in Norway: The importance of place and belonging

Purpose To investigate how older Norwegians understand the relationship between characteristics of their community, health and well-being within communities where residents express either high or low levels of belonging. Methods A sequential mixed-methods study design. The first phase will draw on population-based survey data from the Trondelag Health Study 4 (HUNT4). Information related to demographic characteristics, sense of community belonging, well-being and mental health of HUNT4 participants aged 60 + years (n = similar to 19,000) will be linked at an individual level to data about place of residence including position on a rural continuum and geographic mobility from Statistics Norway. The similar to 30 communities (i.e. geographic areas) will then be ranked by aggregated level of community belonging. Further analysis will be used to provide health and sociodemographic profiles of the communities. Phase 2 will involve semi-structured interviews with older people selected from two communities from the upper decile of sense of community belonging and two communities from the lowest decile. In each community we will recruit five male and five female respondents. The semi-structured interviews will explore respondent's understanding of a sense of community and the characteristics of their community that contribute to improving or undermining their well-being. Analytic integration will be used to relate the different types of qualitative and quantitative data.