Project Summary
By 2030 the older adult population in California is expected to nearly double to over 8.6 million people. Many if not most older adults will reduce and eventually stop driving for medical and non-medical reasons, which in turn can impact mental health and activities including accessing needed medical care. In order to plan for these mobility changes and to support healthy aging in California, this proposed project will build upon work that the research team has conducted in California (funded by National Institute of Health and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) and nationally with members from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Healthy Aging Network (funded by the Federal Transit Administration) to understand the mobility needs of older adults in California. A comprehensive literature review is proposed followed by a representative survey of the aging adult population to assess: (i) mobility needs, (ii) impact of emerging technology on mobility, and (iii) impact of neighborhood characteristics on mobility. Through contracting with established survey companies, we have conducted successful surveys of representative samples of the California population.
