ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Med.
Sec. Geriatric Medicine
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmed.2025.1681486
This article is part of the Research TopicEnvironmental Conditions and Healthy AgingView all articles
Developing Age-Friendly Spaces through a Gerontechnological Lens: A Systemic Framework Based on FDM-DANP Analysis
Provisionally accepted
- 1Graduate Institute of Building and Planning, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan
- 2Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Macao Polytechnic University, Macau, Macao, SAR China
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With the acceleration of population aging and the spread of smart technologies, integrating gerontechnology with spatial design has become an urgent challenge. Although previous studies have examined technology acceptance and environmental adaptation, they have lacked a systematic framework to capture multiple dimensions and their interdependencies with empirical evidence. This study proposes a two-stage integrated framework that combines the Fuzzy Delphi Method (FDM) and the Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory-based Analytic Network Process (DANP) to identify and quantify the key factors and causal structures of integrating Gerontechnology into spatial design. This study utilized FDM to screen out 15 key indicators. The DANP results show that within "Age-Friendly Design," C10: Fault-tolerant spatial configuration received the highest weight (global weight 26.42%), followed by C9: Comfortable ambient temperature under "Living Space" (7.18%). The consensus index of experts for all dimensions exceeded 95%, confirming the reliability of the results. These findings highlight the central role of fault-tolerant spatial configuration and environmental comfort in the integrated framework. In DANP, the consensus index of experts for all dimensions exceeded 95%, confirming the robustness of the findings. In addition, the DEMATEL results reveal that Gerontechnology Application has a primary driving effect on other dimensions and elements in the causal network, showing its key role in system integration. These findings provide policymakers and practitioners with clear references for prioritization and spatial planning, and also offer actionable decision support for smart spatial strategies and cross-sector collaboration in the context of healthy aging.
Keywords: age-friendly, Gerontechnology, Multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM), Systematicintegration, spatial design
Received: 07 Aug 2025; Accepted: 19 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Cheung, Zheng and Wang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Wei-Quan Zheng, p2417948@mpu.edu.mo
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