Mapping real-life mobility and healthy aging: Longitudinal cohorts in Switzerland and Luxembourg

Mobility is a key determinant of individuals’ functional ability across adulthood and healthy ageing. Different geographical environments require adaptive solutions to satisfy the mobility needs of ageing individuals and populations and their associated health and well-being. Mobility research to date lacks a differentiated approach to understanding distinctions and associations between multiple potentially related but presumably distinct concepts, including motility (the [perceived] potential for movement), motivational factors related to mobility, and movement patterns themselves. In addition, the functional value of these different mobility facets in determining the process of ageing well is only poorly understood and often too general in nature to efficiently inform urban planning interventions aiming at promoting healthy ageing.
Project MAMBHA’s objective is to examine the association and impact of diverse dimensions of daily mobility on healthy ageing (i.e., physical health, subjective well-being, social participation and cognition), taking into account motility and
associated environmental (contrasting urban forms and structures, city design, immediate neighbourhood characteristics) as well as motivational factors (values and goals), characterising complex person-environment interactions. Fundamentally, the research asks how the various dimensions of mobility support ageing well. The proposed research is guided by the conceptual view of healthy ageing as functional ability, including mobility, that results from person characteristics interacting with environmental affordances and constraints. Applying this approach provides an interdisciplinary focus encompassing
epidemiology, geography, urban planning, and environmental and gerontopsychology. The consortium established between Switzerland (UZH) and Luxembourg (LISER) brings together these competences, while having accumulated a clear experience in survey and longitudinal design protocols with a real-life focus at the cutting edge of research in the psychological and geographical sciences.
MAMBHA will harness and harmonise two existing studies with a high degree of complementarity that both involve ambulatory assessment of key variables for daily mobility and health outcomes in samples of community-dwelling older adults from two different sociocultural and geographical regions, Switzerland and Luxembourg. Building on these existing datasets, MAMBHA will support the implementation of a longitudinal follow-up of 5 and 8 years, respectively, in each cohort. The resulting two measurement bursts and longitudinal trajectory data are to be compared to determine relations between real-life mobility and its health consequences, while investigating possible environmental context differences between the two countries and exploiting a pooled dataset to leverage a large and heterogeneous sample.
We aim to build a rich empirical basis on which interventions for the facilitation of mobility and hence healthy ageing can be developed by identifying distinct dimensions that comprehensively distinguish between the multidimensional nature of mobility, linking it to conceptual precedents such as motility and motivation, and examining both cross-sectional and longitudinal associations with health outcomes in later life. The dedicated methodology will combine a large spectrum of statistical and spatial analyses, which consist of a systematic comparison and combination of indicators through, for example, exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, accessibility or walkability computation, as well as regression models (e.g., logit, structural, multilevel) according to the main outcomes of healthy ageing. Such empirical and methodological bases will extend current research in both gerontopsychology and health geography, going beyond the currently prevailing view of mobility as a mere activity space concept and bringing motivational and motility factors into the picture.