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Perspectives on Active Transportation in a Mid-Sized Age-Friendly City: “You Stay Home”

Background: Active transportation is an affordable and accessible form of transportation that facilitates the mobility of older adults in their communities. Age-friendly cities encourage and support physical activity and social participation among older adults; however, they often do not adequately...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Klicnik, Irmina, Dogra, Shilpa
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6950044/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31817340
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16244916
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author Klicnik, Irmina
Dogra, Shilpa
author_facet Klicnik, Irmina
Dogra, Shilpa
author_sort Klicnik, Irmina
collection PubMed
description Background: Active transportation is an affordable and accessible form of transportation that facilitates the mobility of older adults in their communities. Age-friendly cities encourage and support physical activity and social participation among older adults; however, they often do not adequately address active transportation. Our goal was to identify and understand the constraints to active transportation that older adults experience in order to inform the development of viable solutions. Methods: Focus group interviews were conducted with community dwelling older adults (n = 52) living in the City of Oshawa in Ontario, Canada; each focus group targeted a specific demographic to ensure a diverse range of perspectives were represented. Data were analyzed to identify themes; sub-group analyses were conducted to understand the experience of those from low socioeconomic status and culturally diverse groups. Results: Themes pertaining to environmental, individual, and task constraints, as well as their interactions, were identified. Of particular novelty, seemingly non-modifiable constraints (e.g., weather and personal health) interacted with modifiable constraints (e.g., urban design). Culturally diverse and lower socioeconomic groups had more favorable perspectives of their neighborhoods. Conclusion: While constraints to active transportation interact to exacerbate one another, there is an opportunity to minimize or remove constraints by implementing age-friendly policies and practices.
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spelling pubmed-69500442020-01-13 Perspectives on Active Transportation in a Mid-Sized Age-Friendly City: “You Stay Home” Klicnik, Irmina Dogra, Shilpa Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Background: Active transportation is an affordable and accessible form of transportation that facilitates the mobility of older adults in their communities. Age-friendly cities encourage and support physical activity and social participation among older adults; however, they often do not adequately address active transportation. Our goal was to identify and understand the constraints to active transportation that older adults experience in order to inform the development of viable solutions. Methods: Focus group interviews were conducted with community dwelling older adults (n = 52) living in the City of Oshawa in Ontario, Canada; each focus group targeted a specific demographic to ensure a diverse range of perspectives were represented. Data were analyzed to identify themes; sub-group analyses were conducted to understand the experience of those from low socioeconomic status and culturally diverse groups. Results: Themes pertaining to environmental, individual, and task constraints, as well as their interactions, were identified. Of particular novelty, seemingly non-modifiable constraints (e.g., weather and personal health) interacted with modifiable constraints (e.g., urban design). Culturally diverse and lower socioeconomic groups had more favorable perspectives of their neighborhoods. Conclusion: While constraints to active transportation interact to exacerbate one another, there is an opportunity to minimize or remove constraints by implementing age-friendly policies and practices. MDPI 2019-12-05 2019-12 /pmc/articles/PMC6950044/ /pubmed/31817340 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16244916 Text en © 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Klicnik, Irmina
Dogra, Shilpa
Perspectives on Active Transportation in a Mid-Sized Age-Friendly City: “You Stay Home”
title Perspectives on Active Transportation in a Mid-Sized Age-Friendly City: “You Stay Home”
title_full Perspectives on Active Transportation in a Mid-Sized Age-Friendly City: “You Stay Home”
title_fullStr Perspectives on Active Transportation in a Mid-Sized Age-Friendly City: “You Stay Home”
title_full_unstemmed Perspectives on Active Transportation in a Mid-Sized Age-Friendly City: “You Stay Home”
title_short Perspectives on Active Transportation in a Mid-Sized Age-Friendly City: “You Stay Home”
title_sort perspectives on active transportation in a mid-sized age-friendly city: “you stay home”
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6950044/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31817340
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16244916
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