[session abstract] community wayfinding and public health: Relevance, research and promise

Community wayfinding is the process whereby people use environmental information to locate and find their way within familiar and unfamiliar settings. Being able to find one's way from place to place is basic to all forms of active and passive transportation and may affect health-related behaviors such as walking and community engagement. This symposium examines the public health implications of wayfinding with the goal of increasing awareness of the pertinent environmental features, individual factors, user tools and technology, and individual-environment interaction that facilitate or inhibit community wayfinding. The presenters will introduce a cross-disciplinary conceptual framework on wayfinding building on established person-environmental models, summarize key findings from a scoping review of literature on community wayfinding, share results from a project examining community wayfinding in older adults, explore the emerging role of technology, and then highlight next steps for public health research and practice. Given our rapidly aging and functionally diverse population that might face distinctive challenges in wayfinding, this symposium is particularly timely and consequential because of the important role that public health researchers and practitioners can play in promoting wayfinding research, policies, and practice. Proposed papers in order of presentation: (1) A conceptual framework for community wayfinding (Abstract 281146), (2) Cross-disciplinary research perspectives on community wayfinding (Abstract 28835), (3) Community wayfinding in older adults: Findings from the Chicago wayfinding assessment project (Abstract 282423) (4) Tools and technologies in facilitating community wayfinding: Opportunities and challenges (Abstract 281833) (5) Community wayfinding: Pathways for public health policy and practice (Abstract 286642).