The social isolation phenomenon presented in the literature demonstrates that, in China, residents have stopped gathering to chat in the current society (1–3); however, it is unclear when and why this has occurred (4, 5). Researchers have argued that neighbors living on the same floor have become familiar strangers (6–8) because they live in the same apartment building and seldom meet as they enter and exit the apartment building through private garages rather than the common entrances (9, 10). As reported in the literature, alongside declining social capital, elevators have become one of the few places for people to meet (7, 8, 11). Subsequently, neighbors in the same apartment building or surroundings are more familiar with each other’s cars but rarely talk face-to-face (8, 12).

If we analyze the reasons for these social isolation phenomena, we can find from the literature that, for example, marketization and urbanization have changed lifestyles in recent decades, with many people moving to cities and leaving their original social communities (1, 2, 13). The year 2000 was a particular year for China because the central government promoted the development of the community concept and proposed new urban community development plans across the country (14, 15). Before the year 2000, people mostly lived in the same building as their colleagues because it was common for employers to provide apartments (7, 12, 16). After 2000, people moved to self-owned apartments, often in the same community, within a comfortable living environment because they purchased the apartment to ensure a comfortable living environment and better services under the guidelines of urban community development proposed by the government (8, 17, 18).

Older adults retire and move close to family members, such as adult children, to urban communities, where they move into independent living environments, such as independent apartments and houses, to respond to family care needs (19, 20). Simultaneously, older adults, who are also afraid of crime (21), implement safety guardrails around their houses and safety cameras outside their apartment front gate to increase their sense of safety along with the fast development of new technology (22, 23). As a result, research proposed that people in modern society trust digital equipment but less trust people like neighbors around them (24). While doing so, residents isolate themselves (5, 25).

Thus, some questions arise: “How do we reclaim/revive social networks in the urban communities?” (6, 7), or “How do we promote social interaction for older adults?” (7, 8). The answers lie in, for example, encouraging people to integrate into the community and social network through interactive social activities (11) or inspiring older adults to establish a sense of social inclusion based on their preferences and interests (26).

Based on this consideration, the current study aims to explore how Dancing with Care (DWC) promotes social integration among older adults in Chinese communities, focusing specifically on participants’ experiences related to community engagement, mutual support, volunteer activity, social connections, and advanced learning through their involvement with DWC. The current study argues that community-based activities, such as DWC, can promote social integration among older adults by allowing them to participate in community activities in China (27). DWC involves nonprofessional dancing activities, such as folk, modern, street, and Latin dance, usually performed with high-decibel and rhythmic music. While participating in DWC is not age-restricted, older adults after retirement are more likely to join the DWC voluntarily, in particular women, who mostly participate in DWC daily, usually in the evening, after dinner, and dance for around 2 hours (28). Participants may also join the DWC and dance schedules on weekends and during their leisure time. DWC participants usually enjoy their activity in community squares, public spaces, or pathways in the community, and usually, each DWC team has approximately 15 to 30 members, with a few DWC teams of more than 100 members (28, 29). DWC is supported by community staff and often receives financial and structural support from local governments, making it a legally organized and widely accepted form of preventative care in urban Chinese communities. DWC has become a legal, openly organized practice (28, 29). It is, on the one hand, formally organized in communities by DWC team leaders or community staff; on the other hand, it is organically developed by participants or leading participants in the team and forms a DWC team that is noticed by the community. All forms of these openly organized DWC practice get financial and structural support from the local government, and dancing leaders in each self-organized subgroup are formed in the community by residents.

The primary goal of DWC is to promote social inclusion for older adults in community activities, as well as a response to the social isolation many older adults face after moving to urban communities. They are encouraged to engage in mutual support, volunteer in various activities, develop social connections, and learn new skills, including the use of advanced technologies based on DWC. By participating in DWC, older adults can rebuild their social networks, improve their psychological and physical health, and contribute to reviving social capital within their communities. Over the last few decades, DWC was developed by the Chinese Social Welfare Department and echoes concepts described in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN CRPD) (30, 31). The DWC vision in the community was set up to (i) enable the unfettered exercise of choice as to where, with whom, and how they want to live (28, 29); (ii) provide support to people to participate successfully in the community (19); (iii) increase social involvement for older adults (26); and (iv) create a relatively friendly community environment and positive social intervention (26, 29).

Notably, DWC was promoted as a model of preventative care in urban communities by the Chinese government because it was initially designed to improve older people’s health and, in particular, promote early disease prevention and enhance social integration, as exactly what preventative care programs can do in the community (15, 31, 32). However, DWC differs from general preventative care programs due to its flexible participation formation, such as dancing activities based on people’s interests and emotions, in which all DWC participants are taught to dance, share dancing experiences, or teach each other. General preventive care services usually include general physical examinations and selective programs to detect illness, which might lack the power to encourage people’s initiative (25). On the other hand, unlike ordinary preventive care, which is identified as an integral part of disease management regimens and makes people connect preventative care with medical activities (25, 31), DWC participants are not only invited to join dance events but also broaden their social network and become more included in society (32, 33). Non-dance activities, such as shopping, traveling, caring for children, or organizing parties, might also be organized based on DWC team members through daily communication and online chatgroups (34, 35). However, empirical systematic analyses of the impact of DWC on social functions for older adults, such as social inclusion, and health conditions, such as mental health, are lacking. Subsequently, exploring how far DWC impacts older adults’ physiological, emotional, and social functions and mental health is significant.

Subsequently, we offer a conceptual framework of DWC while integrating social capital theory, which proposes DWC dimensions focusing specifically on participants’ experiences related to community engagement, mutual support, volunteer activity, social connections, and the use of advanced learning through their involvement with DWC to promote social integration among older adults in Chinese communities. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 60 older adults who regularly participated in DWC in communities in southern China to investigate how older adults can actively engage in the revival of social capital within their social networks in the community. Furthermore, it offers valuable insights for enhancing the social involvement of community residents.

The analysis included field interview data on the prevalence of DWC activity in communities in the targeted provinces in China, the progress of DWC activity, information on the extent of older women’s access to DWC in their local communities, and whether they received any support by participating in DWC activities. Data on DWC development in the community were collected and reviewed by a research team at Anhui Normal University. The researchers were asked to describe DWC activities in terms of team size, form, organization, staffing, location, and participation. A template was used for data collection to retain all data sources.

In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with older adults in 12 communities in Anhui Province, South China. We used snowball sampling in Wuhu to select these communities (76). In Wuhu, officials from the Wuhu Civil Affairs Bureau were asked to recommend three communities that met the following criteria: (a) located within the jurisdiction of the selected city, (b) established for at least 5 years, (c) had official documents supporting DWC activities and practiced DWC activities continuously for more than 1 year, and (d) had at least one nonprofit organization (NPO) joining the implementation of DWC activities, lasted for more than 1 year, and had continuous DWC activities in the past 6 months. After investigating the recommended communities, we asked the community leaders to recommend two or more communities that met the above criteria. The research team interviewed the recommended communities and obtained new recommendations until 12 communities were interviewed.

Sixty respondents (five from each of the 12 communities) were included in the study. The interviewees were older people aged >60 years. We contacted them based on the following inclusion criteria: older than 60 years, lived in the community for at least 9 months in the last year, participated in DWC at least once a week during the past 12 months under normal conditions (not sick, good weather, and available on location), able to clearly express their views, and willing to participate in the research after understanding its purpose. With the support of community staff and NPO leaders in each community, we randomly selected residents who regularly participated in DWC activities via the WeChat group, divided users into multiple WeChat groups, deleted duplicates based on their usernames and avatars, and randomly selected ten candidate residents. One person was randomly selected from the ten selected residents; if they refused to participate in our study, we randomly selected another person from the remaining nine residents. This process was repeated until five residents were selected from each community.

The interviewers were well-trained research assistants (postgraduate students) and our skilled and experienced research team members, who had conducted resident interviews for more than 3 years. We invited nine postgraduate students majoring in public administration as student research assistants to run interviews. Before conducting the formal interview into practice, they were systematically trained and practiced at least five times to ensure that they could conduct the interview smoothly and handle problems that might occur during the interviews. At the same time, during each interview, experienced researchers led the research assistants into the community and communicated with the respondents in advance, informing them that the interview followed the principles of voluntariness and confidentiality and signed the informed consent. The respondents were aged between 60 and 81 years, with an average age of 66.92 years; 48 were women, and 12 were men; the average number of years of participation in DWC was 6.55 years; and 32 self-reported having at least one chronic disease.

Each interview lasted between 35 and 60 min. After obtaining the consent of the interviewee, the research assistants recorded the entire interview process and transcribed the interview record into text materials. The members of this research team reviewed each recording and text. Finally, an original database containing recordings and text was formed, while we also numbered the interview recordings and text in the process. When coding and further analyzing the interviews, the data were randomly distributed, so the interviewer and the person who conducted the data analysis were not the same.

Before conducting the formal interview, we designed a detailed interview question outline based on the research aims and relevant literature (see Appendix 1), and during the interview, we tailored our questions based on the respondents’ interesting responses. The research team developed interview question guidelines based on three levels: primary question content (including three main questions), core question content (including 13 main questions), and extended question content (including six main questions). The interview data were thematically analyzed and coded using a data analysis procedure, which included the preparation and revision of a codebook, training, and evaluation for coders, independent coding by trained coders, and verification and implementation of the coding results. First, following the procedure recommended by Neuendorf (94) and Bengtsson (95), this was based on literature outcomes and our research aim and was conducted by five authors in the research team. Second, we conducted coders’ training and evaluation processes. The coders of this study consisted of two authors (the fourth and fifth authors of this study). We randomly selected five interviews from 60 interviews as training materials (independently), and then the rest of the authors analyzed their coding results. The Holsti coefficients of the two coders were between 0.738 and 0.972. All authors then discussed the tested coding results and gave feedback on the problems of coding. Next, we selected five of the interviews from the remaining 55 interviews, and our two coders conducted the coding again. The team members tested the coding results and found that the Holsti coefficients of these five interviews were between 0.961 and 0.994. Third, the corresponding author selected 25 interviews from the remaining 50 interviews and then randomly selected five from the remaining 25; a total of 30 interviews were included in the formal coding process, which the first coder coded; the corresponding author then randomly selected five interviews from the 25 interviews selected for the first round, plus the remaining 25 interviews from the first round, and handed them over to the second coder for coding. Each coder independently completed the coding of 30 interviews, while among these 30 interviews, both coders coded ten interviews. Other authors calculated their intercoder reliability based on these ten interviews and found that the Holsti coefficient was between 0.964 and 0.996, indicating that the coding process of this study has good intercoder reliability. In the cases when there were discrepancies between coders, we asked the coders to follow our designed coding procedure and coding principles. Then, we organized a discussion meeting again with the participants, all research team members, and three invited experts, who discussed the coding discrepancies, and the consensus reached at the discussion meeting was used as part of the final coding results.

In the coding process, we conducted content analysis coding based on the collected data and conducted relevant coding. During the coding process, no software was used to assist due to financial support limitations. The interview text from each interview was prepared in Chinese, translated into English, and verified by professional language editing services. The study was conducted following the Declaration of Helsinki. The research plan was approved by the University’s Ethics Committee (AHNU-ET2023116). During the implementation phase, we respected the dignity and decision-making rights of each respondent, informed them of the research purpose in advance, and obtained their informed consent before conducting the interviews. Further, we focused on protecting the respondents’ well-being. As the main interviewees were older, the time and location were set according to their preferences to ensure convenience, privacy, and safety. In addition, for 17 interviewees aged over 70 years, community doctors were present in the waiting room to address any possible emergencies. No public health problems were reported during the interviews.

The current study argues that DWC has demonstrated its potential to promote the social involvement of older adults in the community. First, DWC activities offer older adults a chance to have a pool of peers to resort to when they feel lonely and helpless. It provides an opportunity to talk to someone while attenuating physical and emotional pressures through dancing together. DWC provides another dimension of supporting older people in the community compared with other social interventions as it supports older adults in making friends and establishing connections with DWC peers, sharing different social activities such as shopping, sending grandchildren to kindergarten, or cooking together based on dancing networks that established in the primary period. In response to social capital theory’s impact on social integration, DWC has a broadening impact on multiple perspectives of older adults’ social lives.

Second, DWC provides a place and possibility for older adults to engage in social participation rather than older adults’ willingness to engage in social participation, which leads to DWC activities. DWC participants gather to chat, share feelings, support each other, and expand their social networks so that more people are included in the DWC social network. Participation in DWC supports older adults’ sense of contribution to the place they share, such as a community. Their enthusiasm for offering volunteer support in the community proves this argument. Thus, the response to the literature review is that older adults do not change their ideas of living or decrease their enthusiasm for contributing to society. Instead, they become more enthusiastic about community activities as they age. They are also eager to over-participate as a lifestyle choice in public life. The problem that blocked their enthusiasm before was that they could not find a way to express their willingness suitably. Under these circumstances, DWC provides them with a valuable chance, and their enthusiasm for volunteering through DWC activities in the community supports this idea. The older DWC participants found satisfaction in volunteer activities to support their peers and collect information on volunteering shared by peers with similar interests.

Third, the development of new digital technology has enabled flexibility in joining communities from home. However, it has increased social communication anxiety among older adults, who need a community life more than they did before. It is argued that the nature of the community has changed quantitatively from traditional ways such as face-to-face to digital ways of online chat and video activities, which do not need older people to participate in person; moreover, these communities occupy a larger part of our social lives. Currently, many older adults encourage frequent collaborations among their peers. However, casual and pleasant social relationships in the community are interrupted by the new digital forms, and older adults are either unwilling to adapt to this new form because they are not used to it or are unable to accept it owing to their inability to use digital equipment. However, participation in DWC activities has become one of their high-quality choices, which allows them to learn from each other and help keep up-to-date with the high-tech development, such as sharing experiences on using smartphones and software in digital equipment for online shopping, visiting doctors through digital appointments, and checking blood test results online, in a way peers can understand.

Fourth, the emerging trend of DWC in the community has created extensive value that needs to be explored by comparing the findings with existing interventions for older adults, such as the establishment of a community club, similar interesting groups, volunteering mutual support activities, health care support, etc. both in China and globally (97–100). It is necessary to awaken to the new era of diversity and social responsibility to develop community activities meant to enhance social integration for older adults. Older adults’ lives have changed with marketization and urbanization. The current lifestyle encourages older adults to participate in community activities while enhancing their social networks. Modern society calls for older adults to move to these new communities while following their preferences and creating socially integrative memories. DWC paves a new way to enhance our sense of community integration for older people in China. Through DWC, older adults can actively create connective social capital, which requires their willingness and motivation. Nevertheless, natural feelings of relaxation, happiness, involvement, and need are the main attractions of DWC. Singing, walking, dancing, advocating, and participating in activities together through DWC could be an aim, irrespective of ideology or social status. Subsequently, the study further provides valuable insights into enhancing global social involvement, which situates DWC in a broader context and highlights the unique contribution it makes to the field.

Rapid urbanization has drastically changed people’s lifestyle. Consequently, older adults often move from their original residence to urban communities post-retirement. This affects their existing social network and makes them feel less utilized. DWC is a community activity that has rapidly spread across communities in China and helps older adults come together to dance, connect, volunteer in social activities, and develop their social network. This study conducted semi-structured interviews with older adults participating in community-based DWC activities and evaluated the dimensions in which they benefited from DWC. The findings demonstrate that DWC helps older adults integrate into a new community and feel valued while enhancing their mutual learning opportunities and providing opportunities to participate in volunteer activities. Our study contributes significantly to the literature because it provides evidence of how DWC supports the social integration of older adults. The current study highlights a novel approach that can be followed worldwide to improve older adults’ physical and mental health and well-being.