Neighborhood environment plays an important role in late-life health; yet, the social aspect of neighborhood environment and its impact on mobility limitations have rarely been examined. This nonexperimental, cross-sectional study examines the relationship between neighborhood social cohesion and mobility limitations and the potential mediators (i.e., depressive symptoms, mastery) of this relationship. A total of 8,317 Americans aged 65 years and older were selected from the Health and Retirement Study. Using ordinary least squares regressions, this study shows that neighborhood social cohesion was negatively associated with mobility limitations (B = −0.04, p < .01). A Sobel test of mediation indicated that this relationship was significantly mediated by depressive symptoms (z = −9.10, p < .001) and mastery (z = −8.86, p < .001). Findings suggest that neighborhood cohesion can reduce mobility limitations through mitigating depressive symptoms and increasing mastery. Future research should disentangle the temporal ordering of the mediators.

邻里环境对晚年健康起着重要作用；然而，社区环境的社会方面及其对流动性限制的影响却很少被研究。这项非实验性的横断面研究考察了邻里社会凝聚力和流动性限制之间的关系，以及这种关系的潜在中介因素（即抑郁症状、掌握）。从健康和退休研究中选择了总共 8,317 名 65 岁及以上的美国人。使用普通最小二乘回归，本研究表明邻里社会凝聚力与流动性限制呈负相关 ( B = -0.04, p  < .01)。Sobel 中介检验表明，这种关系显着由抑郁症状介导（z = -9.10, p  < .001) 和掌握 ( z = -8.86, p  < .001)。研究结果表明，邻里凝聚力可以​​通过减轻抑郁症状和提高掌握程度来减少流动性限制。未来的研究应该解开中介的时间顺序。