Improving well-being via adaptive reuse: transformative repurposed service organizations

This research illustrates the social supportive role that adaptive resuse of service organizations may play in promoting individual well-being. This work showcases how a health care clinic located in a developing country transforms into a setting which hosts community members’ socially supportive relationships during the clinic's off-hours. The empirical results reveal that participating in an array of social activities offered in the clinic grants clinic patrons, most of whom are financially vulnerable, access to social supportive resources. The results show that social support is positively related to patrons’ sense of belonging, well-being, and quality of life. The authors encourage public health and governmental agencies, especially in low-income areas where people often lack sufficient social support and in locales where governmental agencies confront monetary limitations, to consider the adaptive resuse of structures (i.e. clinics, education facilities, and office buildings) into spaces that encourages community members to gather and to socialize.