These small, simple fixes to our cities could help seniors feel less isolated | Canada Voices

As Canada’s population continues to age, social isolation among seniors has become a growing concern among health officials and policymakers.

Already, one in five Canadians over the age of 65 report experiencing loneliness – an issue that is particularly pronounced among people with low incomes, and those living in rural areas. Health-care officials have warned loneliness not only impacts the mental health of seniors, but also increases the risk of many other conditions, including diabetes, heart disease and dementia.

The list of potential solutions is long, but not all of them have to be complicated, says Amanda Montague, who teaches in the digital humanities program at Carleton University. She worked with a group of graduate students and seniors living in the Ottawa South area to identify how relatively simple changes to neighbourhood design, such as building more park benches and making sure sidewalks are promptly cleared of snow, could go a long way toward addressing loneliness. The Globe and Mail spoke with her about her research on how to combat social isolation.

Ann Hui: What struck me from your study is how straightforward some of the recommendations are.

Amanda Montague: A lot of the health research around social isolation and loneliness is focused on important things like social prescribing and access to health-care providers.

But I think what this project showed us is that there is a space, too, for seniors who aren’t yet in need of advanced care, but who are seeing changes – in mobility, as a result of retirement, as a result of family or lifestyle changes, widowhood, all the things – and who still want opportunities to socialize.

And there’s not really a pocket of attention or services easily accessible or co-ordinated across the neighbourhood.

There is a huge desire to support seniors, to help them age in place. I think that there’s a lot of goodwill and good intention. And so this is just meant to kind of pull back the curtain on ways that we support social connection.

Your study in particular emphasizes the importance of physical space – of the importance of good design in creating opportunities for social connection.

We definitely learned that participants love their neighbourhood. There are a lot of community assets – outdoor spaces, parks, community gardens, recreation centres, community centres and businesses that were all identified as places supporting connection and fostering a village-like feel. But we also saw, unsurprisingly, that access to these spaces matter.

If you want to go out and explore the neighbourhood, not having frequent opportunities to sit down and rest, or having unreliable transit, or a lack of parking, it starts to become a problem. It becomes a deterrent to maintaining those social activities.

One big one that you emphasize is weather.

This is Ottawa. So weather conditions play a huge factor, whether it’s winter access – because of snow or lack of snow removal – but also, now, summer and extreme heat.

This is a very walkable neighbourhood, and many members of the community rely on walking. But all of a sudden [when there’s snow], all of that gets kind of shut down, and just makes it impossible for seniors to feel even motivated to leave their house.

The sidewalks already have infrastructure problems like potholes and cracks and things that challenge mobility. But when the snow comes and it’s not quickly removed, it makes the sidewalks inaccessible. Or the snow gets cleared, and then snow comes again an hour later. Inadequate snow removal in front of businesses was also a huge issue. It really shuts down access to community, and access to services.

You also emphasize the importance of benches.

What we heard was that, if you have spaces where you can just feel comfortable lingering, where you feel invited to to sit – spaces that invite conversation, that are designated for social connection – that this could go a long way in creating comfort around being in public spaces and being out in the community.

There are also practical needs. Being able to get up and down from the bench, making sure that benches have the right kind of design, so that seniors can easily get in and out.

And also just being a place to rest, if they’re walking through the neighbourhood.

There’s been a lot of talk, in general, about the importance of third spaces – informal gathering spaces for the community. Why are these kinds of spaces especially important for seniors?

We heard that a lot of opportunities for connection are activity-based. There’s sports, or gardening, or dog parks. And these either require physical ability, or transportation or resources.

We heard, for example, from folks who love the dog park as a great place for connection. But they don’t have a dog, so they feel like it’s weird to be there.

So a big recommendation we saw coming out of this was a need for more socially defined third spaces. Just places where, as one participant put it, ‘we can just be together rather than do together.’

These might be community centres, that are paying particular attention to the social programming needs of seniors. It might also mean taking accessible buildings that are maybe underused – churches were one idea that came up – to develop programming or opportunities for senior social connections.

This is a demographic where our respondents really valued feeling invited into spaces to linger, to socialize – without a requirement to do something. A low-barrier-to-entry social space.

And not be required to buy anything

Exactly. There’s lots of programming – lots of senior exercise groups, for instance. But not everybody can do everything, and you’ll never find one thing that everyone can do.

So creating more opportunities to reduce the barriers to be in social spaces, or rethink what social spaces look like was an interesting learning.

This interview has been edited and condensed.