On the road to promoting mobility and health after driving cessation among older adults
Description: Mobility is a broad concept that can be understood as the ability to move oneself within environments that include one's residence and neighbourhood. For many older adults, mobility outside the home is primarily achieved through driving a motor vehicle. Driving affords independence, forms a central part of identity, and has been associated with high quality of life. Older adults who have ceased driving describe a void in their lives after driving. Driving cessation among older adults is associated with poor health as well as increased risk of institutionalization and mortality. The research on driving cessation has been focused on the negative health impacts of non-driving with little emphasis on mobility impacts or variables that protect against negative health outcomes. It is now necessary to shift the focus to understanding and supporting older adults who are no longer safe to drive and to reframe this issue in terms of mobility. Our main objectives are: 1) confirm the associations and better understand the temporal relationship between driving cessation and health related outcomes in a large Canadian sample; and 2) identify individual- and contextual-level factors that moderate the relationship between driving status and health-related outcomes among older adults. Participants will be derived from the Candrive project, a large prospective cohort study of older drivers that collected a host of variables over a 7-year period. Additional measures related to the individual and their environment will be administered to consenting participants already enrolled in the Candrive study. This study will follow individuals for an additional 4 years in order to observe more cases of driving cessation. This study will identify factors that promote health among older adults after driving cessation and will be used to develop interventions and policies to facilitate a healthy transition to non-driving.
Amount: CA$417,800
Funding type: research
Funder scheme: Project Grant
Start date: 2017-04-01
End date: 2022-03-31
Investigator: Michel Bedard
Institution: Lakehead University (Thunder Bay, Ontario)
Topic: Older Adults Driving Studies
Field: Health Professions
Domain: Health Sciences
Funded outputs count: 0
Funder award ID: 152958_1
OpenAlex ID: G7963601645