Promoting older adults’ proactive home modifications for successful ageing in place

Last registered on May 18, 2026

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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

Promoting older adults’ proactive home modifications for successful ageing in place

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0018611

Initial registration date

May 11, 2026

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published

May 18, 2026, 4:10 AM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

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Primary Investigator

Name

Bo Kyong Seo

Affiliation

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Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status

On going

Start date

2025-04-02

End date

2026-10-31

Keywords

Behavior, Environment & Energy, Health

Additional Keywords

JEL code(s)

Secondary IDs

Prior work

This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.

Abstract

Ageing in place has been prioritised as the strategic elderly policy direction in Hong Kong to address the challenges posed by the fast growth of the aged population. A safe and accessible home is an important requisite for successful ageing in place, and hence, indoor housing environments should be adapted and modified in a timely manner to compensate for one’s declining functional competence in old age. However, home modifications are not a common practice among community-dwelling older adults in Hong Kong’s private housing sector. The existing home modification services are provided mainly to those who had fall experiences or have functional impairments and are directed by health practitioners or NGOs. There is scarce research examining how to effectively encourage older adults to implement proactive home modifications so that they can better prepare for ageing in their familiar home settings.

The proposed research will address three key issues drawing on the integrative conceptual framework of the person-environment fit in later life. First, it will examine how the age-friendliness of indoor housing environments, interplaying with individual, social, neighbourhood factors, is associated with community-dwelling older adults’ developmental outcomes. Second, the research will explore community-dwelling older adults’ perception of and intention for home modifications to improve their housing environments and identify the determinants of their home modification intention. Finally, this research will examine the effectiveness of enhanced knowledge of and engagement in the process of home modifications on increasing older adults’ home modification intention. Specifically, it will examine the efficacy of using a home modification resource guidebook and immersive technology that can visualise selected home modification models in the real housing environment.

To address these issues, we will use a sequential mixed methods design: The initial randomised controlled trial will quantitatively examine the association between the indoor housing environment and older adults’ developmental outcomes and the experiment’s outcomes. The subsequent qualitative photovoice method will generate nuanced and contextualised explanations for the preceding quantitative study based on older adults’ lived experiences.

This research will advance the knowledge in the environmental gerontology literature by deepening our understanding of the relationship between the housing environment and older adults’ well-being. It will also inform public policy, housing design strategies, and elderly care services that aim to promote an age-friendly housing environment and proactive home modifications among community-dwelling older adults for their successful ageing in place.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Seo, Bo Kyong. 2026. "Promoting older adults’ proactive home modifications for successful ageing in place." AEA RCT Registry. May 18. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.18611-1.0

Sponsors & Partners

Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

Intervention A: We will create a list of 15 most common home modification models and make a printed version of the home modification resource guidebook that contains the photos and brief descriptions (e.g., size, colour) of the models, price ranges, installation lead time, and the contact information of a few service providers, together with general guidelines for safety at home (e.g., removing loose throw rugs, decluttering). The interviewers will give the participants a summary of the home assessment results and the home modification resource guidebook and explain how to utilise them for home modifications.

Intervention B: We will develop an augmented reality (AR) mobile application that older adults can use to visualise what the modification outcomes will look like in the real home context. We will create the 3D models of the home modification measures included in the home modification resource guidebook and then load them into an online AR projecttion platform. We will keep the functions of the AR interface
simple so that the participants can easily operate it with a few guided steps to visualise the digital models in their real home environment. The interviewers will give the participants a summary of the home assessment results and the resource guidebook and explain how to utilise them for home modifications. At the same time, the interviewers will help teach the participants how to launch the AR tool on their smart devices and demonstrate how to use it to visualise the potential modification outcomes. We will also send the participants a short video tutorial about how to install/use the app. A week after this visit, interviewers will contact both intervention groups by phone to check if they have read the booklet and used the app and if there are any inquiries.

Intervention Start Date

2025-04-02

Intervention End Date

2026-10-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

Desire to age in place, Quality of life, Home modification intention

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

Activities of daily living (ADL), Instrumental activities of living (IADL), Social engagement, Attitude toward home modification, Subjective norm about home modification, Perceived behavioral control of home

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Participants will be recruited through advertisements in the newspaper, social media, senior centres, and elderly service providers in Hong Kong by posting flyers and word-of-mouth. The eligibility criteria include: community-dwelling older adults aged 65 or above who speak the local language, are neither bedbound nor diagnosed with dementia, live in private housing (except for subdivided units), have not implemented home modifications before, and have at least one smart device (e.g., smartphone, tablet PC) and be able to use the basic functions (e.g., opening apps, internet search). A brief telephone screening will be carried out with interested participants to determine their eligibility. An information sheet will be presented to the participants, and a signed consent form will be obtained before the survey. Interviewers will visit the participants' home and conduct a questionnaire survey and interventions. Participants in this one-hour questionnaire will receive a HK$100 supermarket coupon as an incentive. The research team will crosscheck the adequacy of the survey modules. Two weeks after the initial survey, the interviewers will contact all three groups by phone and conduct a follow-up survey. This time, the questions will focus on the ‘home modification intention’ module and any changes in the sociodemographic and housing attributes since the baseline survey. Participants in this 15-minute survey will receive a HK$50 supermarket coupon as an incentive by post.

Experimental Design Details

Not available

Randomization Method

We will randomly and evenly assign eligible participants to three groups (one control, two intervention groups) using stratified randomisation (via computerised random numbers) to ensure approximately equal allocation of participants to the three groups. Random allocation will be done by an independent researcher not involved in this research. Two weeks after the initial survey, trained interviewers will visit the two intervention groups.

Randomization Unit

We will first stratify the participants by their housing tenure (owner vs. tenant) and age (65-75 vs. 76 and above) and randomly assigned individuals to control, intervention A, or intervention B group within each tenure-age strata.

Was the treatment clustered?