Residents' sense of safety in senior living communities: A conceptual paper

Senior living communities (SLCs) are the new frontier of hospitality management. They provide high-end amenities and customer-oriented services for residents and employ various strategies to prevent risks and guarantee residents' safety because safety is an essential factor in older adults' lives as they age. Although a few studies have assessed residents' safety or perceptions of safety, none of these research studies were conceptual or grounded in a comprehensive safety model. This paper proposes a conceptualization of sense of safety to evaluate residents' perceptions of four types of risks (i.e., physical, social, emotional and psychological, and financial) in SLCs. This conceptual research provides important suggestions for researchers to assess residents' perceptions of risk and sense of safety and also offers practical recommendations for senior living community operators to consider when addressing the four different types of risks that could enhance residents' sense of safety in their SLCs.