Title: Equity for the Older: Beyond Digital Access
Funder: Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council

Abstract: Older adults have long been lesser beneficiaries of the digital economy, with many unable or choosing not to adopt digital technologies which do not speak to their particular needs and wants. With COVID-19 spurring societal digitalisation at an unprecedented pace, digitally disadvantaged older adults have been locked out of essential and life-saving services, while others have been made to take up technologies they may be deeply uncomfortable using. As we reimagine society to deal with an ongoing pandemic reality, it is essential that older adults are neither left behind nor forced to make major concessions in their way of life. It is not enough, therefore, to simply improve access to digital technologies. An equitable digital society requires that older adults are welcomed into a digital economy that treats them as first order stakeholders. This project fills this critical need to create a digital society that delivers equal to benefits older adults by: 1) Analysing data on older adults that has been collected over the last 20 years to understand various interrelated and multiplicative factors in older adults' exclusion from the digital economy; 2) Conducting interviews and focus groups with older adults to explore how this period of rapid digitalisation has altered older adults' relationship with digital technologies, focusing on four key areas undergoing important change as a result of the pandemic: Health, Communication, Place, Finance; 3) Co-designing new technology prototypes with older adults to establish a radical new practice which enables older adults to meaningfully participate in creating an equitable digital society; and 4) Creating lasting resources to instill best practice for a digital economy that is inclusive of the full diversity of older adults.

Lay abstract: For decades, older adults have lagged behind in their uptake of digital technologies, and they continue to do despite many having acquired digital skills during their working lives. Meanwhile, studies have regularly shown that older adults are capable of learning to use digital technologies when sufficiently motivated to do so. This points to the exclusionary and unappealing nature of the digital economy for older adults, who, if considered at all by those designing digital technologies, are not attended to seriously as a heterogeneous stakeholder group with various needs and wants. This would be ethically problematic even without the intensification of harm caused by digital exclusion in an age of pandemic-inspired, rapid, economy-wide digitalisation; now it should be seen as a matter of great national importance. In order to entice larger portions of older cohorts to take up digital technologies and feel confident in using them, this project fills critical gaps in understanding around how to design technologies that benefit older adults at different stages of getting older, with different types of knowledge and intention, and different socio-economic contexts and intersections of identity and status. This project, therefore, aims to catalyse positive transformation towards a digital society that delivers equitable benefits to individuals across the age spectrum through three research objectives in the following order: 1. Reconceptualise digital equity. To date, efforts to resolve the problem of older adult digital exclusion have focused on 'bringing older adults in' to the digital economy by improving access and building tech skills; but the digital economy itself remains unchanged, and structural contributors to marginalisation in that economy unremedied. We will deliver concrete policy recommendations that attend to these structural barriers, and establish a sustained means of older adults directly influencing the digital economy to deliver real benefits to them as a heterogeneous stakeholder group, thereby facilitating inclusion on their own terms. 2. Produce novel prototypes and resources. Using a mixed-method approach, we will identify factors that contribute to older adult exclusion, yielding key insights for more inclusive technology designs; and we will work with older adults to co-design these solutions, with our project partners offering tangible pathways to commercialisation of resulting prototypes. In addition to our own growing portfolio of inclusive designs, we will produce open source toolkits that can be used by others to develop more inclusive designs, develop a responsible innovation checklist to aid designers in more reflective practice, and create a methodological blueprint for engaging older adults as co-designers of the digital economy. 3. Advance a transformational research agenda. We will engage closely with older adults and other relevant stakeholders to produce a roadmap to achieving a shared vision of an equitable digital society. Our co-design workshops, co-researcher group activities, and listening series with older adult audiences will help define this vision; and our partnerships with The RSA and Lloyds Banking Group, who both have a wealth of experience in effecting positive social change and extensive stakeholder/policy networks, will help us deliver this vision.

Research activity codes: 7.1 INDIVIDUAL CARE NEEDS;8.1 ORGANISATION AND DELIVERY OF SERVICES
Health categories: GENERIC HEALTH RELEVANCE