Title: Co-design of the built environment for mobility in later life
Funder: Arts and Humanities Research Council

Abstract: Mobility, wellbeing and the built environment: Wellbeing in later life is linked to the maintenance of independence, physical mobility itself and the sense of being able to get about. Mobility is vital for accessing services, resources and facilities, for social participation, and for avoiding loneliness. Thus mobility has been described more broadly as 'engagement with the world'. The design of the built environment has a key role to play in enabling - or frustrating - mobility. Thus appropriate design or redesign of the built environment can expand horizons and support wellbeing. However, this project focuses on complements or alternatives to physical design or redesign of the built environment. Design and adaptation are time and resource intensive. Many well-understood mobility barriers remain in place because of budget constraints. Design of the built environment is just one the determinants of mobility and wellbeing. Any one environment cannot meet all needs at once, and needs can vary even for an individual, as people pass through key physical and social transitions which may alter mobility and wellbeing. Based on participatory research, this project aims to create a suite of options and tools which may be able to meet contrasting needs, support mobility and wellbeing, and do so more quickly and affordably than adapting the built environment. The research aims to: 1) Explore mobility and wellbeing for older people going through critical but common life transitions; 2) Investigate and address variation and contradictions in needs of different groups of older people (and even for single individuals over time), and between different built environment agendas; and 3) To co-create practical tools which can act as complements or alternatives to redesign of the built environment. After a foundation stage the work will commence with interviews with national experts and stakeholders. We will select three contrasting local areas in which to base the rest of the research, and interview c15 local stakeholders in each area. We will then start a pioneering quarterly tracking study of mobility and wellbeing, working with c120 older people in the three sites who are experiencing critical but common life transitions such as losing a driving license, losing a partner, or becoming a carer. These transitions are often seen as key points for deterioration in mobility and wellbeing, and as key points for support and intervention. We will then work with a series of small groups of older people in workshops and co-design sessions, to explore the potential for interventions as alternatives and complements to promoting mobility and wellbeing via redesign. Each will involve a series of day-long meetings between researchers and older people, over about a year. One set of workshops will explore how well 'crowdsourcing' and Participatory Geographical Information Systems can add to and collate information about mobility wants and needs and barriers. Another will involve older people with varying interests in relation to the built environment, to explore conflicts and the potential for consensus on some issues. There will be co-design workshops with older people to explore mobile technologies based on SmartPhones, to help people avoid key blockages to mobility in particular areas. Other workshops will work with mobility scooter users, and manufacturers and those whose mobility may be threatened by scooters, to explore the feasibility of adapting scooters to reduce problems The impact of participation itself will be tracked. Project outputs will include: a project website, accessible annual interim and summative reports to project stakeholders and others, a summative report, articles for academic journals across team member disciplines, trade press articles for relevant professionals, potentially video or new media, a local stakeholder and older person conference and national 'Roadshow', as well as other dissemination events.


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