Title: Intersectional Stigma of Place-based Ageing (ISPA)
Funder: Economic and Social Research Council

Abstract: Intersectional Stigma of Place-based Ageing (ISPA) Stigma can lead to increased barriers to services, exclusion and negative experiences, yet little is known about the lived experiences of people impacted by several dimensions of stigma (intersectional stigma). This project will co-produce solutions and interventions with older disabled adults that break down the barriers to access and inclusion in key services created by stigma. The over-arching aim of ISPA is two-fold: 1. Investigate the lived realities of disabled adults with sensory and mobility impairments, identifying how different types of stigma (related to age, disability and place) converge to produce added barriers to living inclusively. 2. Co-produce an innovative Inclusive Living Toolkit to include the experiences of older disabled adults and use it to facilitate organisational change that supports accessible and inclusive practice in homes and neighbourhoods. This work will be underpinned by a new community peer-research group of disabled adults; in turn increasing individual and community capacity to developing more inclusive approaches to ageing in place. The community peer researcher group will work with project partners to identify practical ways to reduce barriers to inclusion (via increasing accessibility and inclusive practice) and improve the chances for older disabled adults to age (well)-in-place. This will be achieved through an ambitious 5-year participatory mixed method study, using innovative analyses of secondary longitudinal quantitative data, new ethnographic qualitative data, and co-production with disabled community peer-reviewers to address the following objectives: Objectives O1: Understand the lived experiences and contextual effects of intersectional stigma for disabled adults, specifically with mobility and sensory impairments via qualitative and quantitative secondary analysis and a new qualitative longitudinal dataset. O2: Explore the potential of 'ageing-in-place' and place-based practical solutions in housing practice to tackle intersectional stigma and inequality via accessible homes and communities. O3: Build research capacity through establishing a group of older (65+) disabled community peer-researchers who will research the lived experiences of disabled people and their experiences of intersectional stigma. O4: Develop an existing Inclusive Living Toolkit to integrate lived experience of disabled older adults to tackle inequalities related to accessibility via home and neighbourhood modifications and support ageing-in-place. O5: Facilitate organisational change via a newly developed Inclusive Living Toolkit to deliver practical interventions that support accessible home and neighbourhood modifications. O6: Monitor and evaluate change and tangible impact instigated from O3-5 to determine the extent to which home and neighbourhood modifications can reduce stigma related to perceptions around adaptations, ageing, place and disability and how these impact on inclusion. To deliver these objectives, the project will create a new Inclusive Living Alliance to take forward the academic interdisciplinary insights for social policy, human geography, economics, ageing and housing studies. Practice-oriented outputs will be fully accessible (including video/audio) using data to highlight stories and lived experiences to bring diverse groups together and share best practice via knowledge exchange events. Therefore, the project objectives fit into the Inclusive Ageing call by improving our understanding of inequalities through the framework of intersectional stigma and converting these into practical solutions such as adaptations that improve inclusivity for older disabled adults.

Lay abstract: People experience stigma (linked to negative attitudes, beliefs, and experiences because of a perceived difference) due to certain individual characteristics such as age, disability, or where they live. Older disabled people are more likely to live in poorer areas that carry a certain stigma, in homes not fit for purpose, with increased challenges in accessing support services. Little is known about how experiences of several stigmas converge and impact upon the way that people are integrated and feel included in their communities and societies. The negative impact of stigma must be examined as it has a detrimental effect on inclusion, creating barriers to accessing services and places. Stigma is also a process that can make certain people less powerful in getting the help needed; this is particularly compounded for disabled people. This project will examine inequalities and stigma through the experiences of older disabled adults and explore interventions such as home and environmental modifications that encourage inclusive approaches that support people to age well within homes and communities. The project will focus on older disabled adults (65+) with mobility and sensory impairments but also capture different experiences as everyone is a stakeholder in ageing: Inclusive ageing is not just a 'problem' for or about older people. Furthermore, this project is not just about disabled people. Through engaging with disabled researchers and having representation of disabled people in the academic team and advisory panel it will ensure our research is conducted with disabled people at its heart. The project will create a new community peer-researcher group of older disabled adults. This group will be trained to carry out research in their communities, such as observation, analysing videos and photographs and keeping reflective diaries. By participants also being researchers, this will increase capacity for disabled people to be integrated into evidence-based solutions. The research project utilises data that already exists and the collection of new data relating to people's experiences. We will utilise information that has already been gathered in large statistical datasets but re-examine it to understand where different points of identity, including disability, income, age and neighbourhood inequalities, cross and intersect. The project will also create a new set of sources that will capture a nuanced and detailed account of people's lives using deliberative diaries that give insight to the real-life experiences of people to help understand and tackle barriers to inclusion. This will be done by using a new concept and toolkit called Inclusive Living, which was co-created with housing organisations. However, the existing toolkit is not fully representative of society, and this project will review and modify it to ensure the experiences of disabled people are integrated. Using the information gathered about people's lived experiences, the project will work with organisations using the newly developed toolkit to make positive changes to increase accessibility for disabled adults with mobility and sensory impairments. This will focus on home and environment modifications, often termed adaptations, and involve confirmed key partners that include housing associations, housing developers, third sector and health and social care organisations. The project has confirmed partnerships with key housing providers to begin this activity, looking to form an Inclusive Living Alliance. The project will further create resources that will help organisations facilitate change to address barriers that disabled adults have experienced and shared within the project. We will create accessible videos and audio podcasts of lived experiences of stigma to bring the stories shared to life. These resources will then be used to make key policy and practice recommendations aiming to improve inclusivity for disabled people.

Research activity codes: 1.2 PSYCHOLOGICAL AND SOCIOECONOMIC PROCESSES
Health categories: GENERIC HEALTH RELEVANCE