Title: Connectivity and Digital Design for Promoting Health and Well-being Across Generations, Places and Spaces
Funder: Economic and Social Research Council

Abstract: Our research investigates the topic of the development of digital resources to enhance older people's health connectivity through addressing the following four principal questions: How can older people be connected online to communities and tools for health promotion across settings (community- based, care homes) and groups (intergenerational, disadvantaged including economic deprivation, sensory and cognitive loss, ethnically diverse) in Scotland and England? How can novel interdisciplinary approaches and technologies be used to develop and deliver digital products to enhance older people's participation in health promotion activities? How do digitally-delivered meaningful activities, such as intergenerational physical activity (IGPA) and sport-based reminiscence (SBIR) influence older and younger people's health, well-being and intergenerational relations? What impact does user-centred co-production have on the design of digital products and services for improving health connectivity in later life? The objectives of the research related to these questions are: 1. To understand the barriers (social, economic, geographical, health- and place-related) to older people's access to digital resources for health connectivity; 2. To empirically analyse the feasibility and processes of intergenerational co-production for digital health promotion product development; 3. To assess the appeal to older and younger users of digital applications for IGPA and SBIR activities; 4. To capture the impact of digitally-delivered IGPA and SBIR on relevant health, well-being and relational outcomes in older and younger people; 5. To build capacity for robust interdisciplinary research through a collaborative research process incorporating co- production practice and technologies to document that practice. 6. To critically document the principal problems and opportunities for business engagement with older users of digital health promotion products; 7. To contribute to interdisciplinary theory and methods regarding health connectivity and co-production; 8. To offer policy and practice recommendations about how to engage older and younger people in intergenerational co- design for product development; 9. To foster awareness of the benefits of user-engaged co-design of health promotion products for older people through outputs including public and business engagement events and media products.

Lay abstract: This 3-year research programme aims to examine how we can design, test, deliver and evaluate digital resources to facilitate structured activity programmes for 'health connectivity' in older age. Through examining the feasibility and impact of a digital approach to two existing initiatives, intergenerational physical activity (IGPA) and sports-based intergenerational reminiscence (SBIR), the research will demonstrate the potential for development of related products and services to enhance support for health in later life. Developing and strengthening older people's 'connectivities' - their links with community, resources and meaningful activities - is a key part of supporting healthy ageing and reducing health inequalities in later life. Social connectivity and increasingly, digital connectivity, are pillars of what we here term 'health connectivity', or an individual's links to supports for health and well-being. Both IGPA and SBIR are designed to deliver activities in ways which foster social connectivity for participants within and between generations, increasing mutual understanding and empathy. The impact of social connectivity on older people's health behaviours and health outcomes is well established, as is risk of reduced social connectivity in later life due to factors such as area deprivation and conditions like visual, hearing and cognitive impairment. Far less is known about the most effective ways to maintain and improve connectedness and so optimise those benefits. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought into focus the need to be able to deliver programmes which support older people's social connectivity such as IGPA and SBIR effectively in a socially distanced world, but digital connectivity-connectedness through digital technology - was already of growing importance to older people in enabling them to access community, information and other resources in addition to eHealth applications and online healthcare services. COVID-19 has also brought into stark relief the need to urgently address so called 'digital divides', inequalities in access to digital connectivity through age, economic disadvantage and functional limitations, and this programme will stimulate developments which help to reduce such inequalities. The research programme, to be delivered by an interdisciplinary team of researchers based at the Universities of Plymouth and Stirling, consists of six 6-month inter-linked and co-dependant work packages (WPs) and will employ an innovative intergenerational co-production approach throughout. In WP1, information sharing mechanisms will be developed, a consultative Reference Group constituted, reviews and interviews with intergenerational programming providers to inform subsequent WPs conducted, and outcome measures developed for a pre- and post- testing of IGPA and SBIR participants. In WP2 community dwelling older people and younger participants in Cornwall (64) and Scotland (32) and 48 residents from 12 care homes (16 Stirling/32 Cornwall) will be recruited via partner organisations and form 20 researcher-supported intergenerational co-production groups (ICGs) for WP3. Following baseline outcome assessments, each ICG will meet bi-weekly for 6 months to share experiences of sport and physical activity and explore and test assistive technologies for either IGPA or SBIR. Recording of meetings and researcher observations will be thematically analysed to document those processes and identify themes around user needs and product ideas. In WP4 findings will be shared and the WP team will work with SME business partners to innovate new technologies to support IGPA and SBIR, with SMEs design concepts tested by the ICGs to inform development of prototypes tested by the ICGs in WP5, ending with post-test outcome assessments. Project-spanning implementation of the impact, knowledge exchange and communications strategy, coordination across interlinked empirical WPs, and dissemination activities are all included within WP6

Research activity codes: 3.1 PRIMARY PREVENTION INTERVENTIONS TO MODIFY BEHAVIOURS OR PROMOTE WELL-BEING
Health categories: GENERIC HEALTH RELEVANCE