Tools and technologies in facilitating community wayfinding: Opportunities and challenges

Ensuring effective community wayfinding (CWF) is critical for maintaining mobility among older adults. Reduced mobility, associated with either age or disability, is a public health burden. The purpose of this presentation is to discuss the role of user tools and technologies in facilitating CWF in older adults and people with mobility disabilities. Wayfinding tools and aids used by people to support mobility and/or navigation include but are not limited to smartphones, compasses, maps, and written directions. We report the results of a review and synthesis of the literature on user tools and technologies as related to CWF. In our review we include but are not limited to populations with sensory and/or cognitive impairments. We propose new research directions, including the need to better understand the use of tools in everyday settings and how tool-use relates to public health outcomes such as increased physical activity. We summarize opportunities and challenges of user tools and technologies, such as those associated with barriers and the equitable distribution of these technologies in underserved populations. Without a consideration of these barriers, CWF innovations, no matter how efficacious and effective, may only serve to aggravate health and functional disparities by race, ethnicity, and region in aging populations.