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Visualizing Future Needs For Senior/Elder

Mobility Services and Technologies:

Mapping Future Demand Presented By:

Senior Mobility Initiative on Cape Cod (SMICC)

Dr. Alice E. SmithWarren K. Smith, BSEE, ASA

Friday, March 9, 20072007 Joint Conference of The American Society on Aging and the

National Council on Aging

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Senior Mobility Initiative on Cape Cod

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LandView6 http://www.census.gov/geo/landview/lv6.pdf

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LandView 6

Combines:• Database

– Census 2000 Statistics

• Mapping– Area Mapping– Thematic Mapping

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Centerville, MA SAMPLE

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Centerville, MA

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LandView 6 Sample: Median Age by ZIP Code – Mid-Cape Cod

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Mappingthe

Senior MoAbility Indicators

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Fifteen Towns, 3 Regions, 43 ZIP Code Areas

Cape Cod’s Senior/Elder Population = 80,000; 51,000 Age 65+

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Mapping Senior/Elder Mobility

Introduced a new user-friendly tool for recognizing and visually pinpointing geographic “hot spots” of present and future senior/elder mobility assistive service and technology needs.

Such map-based information is invaluable to those advocating for senior services and technologies, such as an area agency on aging, home-based, and transportation services.

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Q & A

** Discussion **

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Contact Information

Dr. Alice E. Smith– President, Family-Centered

Institute, Inc. 66 Massasoit Trail Brewster, MA 02631 alismith@clarku.edu

Warren K. Smith– Chairperson, Senior Mobility

Initiative on Cape Cod c/o Family-Centered

Institute, Inc. 66 Massasoit Trail Brewster, MA 02631

wsmithstat@aol.com

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Introductory Remarks:

Good Morning. My name is Dr. Alice Smith and I am here with my colleague (and husband), Warren to tell you about how those of us up on Cape Cod are using a new PLANNING TOOL in an attempt to influence the development of appropriate services and programs for our future senior citizens. We have recently begun using what we call Senior MoAbility Indicators to help convince community leaders to fund future programs for age 65+ residents. The Indicators are a set of twenty mobility characteristics that serve to generally describe the ability of seniors and elders to “get up, get out, and get about” in their community.  

Some of you were with us in the previous Workshop and heard about the Indicator Set and how we are beginning to apply it in planning mobility “assist” services for seniors up in Massachusetts. We have some extra hand-out materials from that Workshop for those of you who didn’t get a set.  

Briefly, the “A” in MoAbility signifies ABILITY! While recognizing that most seniors eventually develop conditions that limit their mobility, our emphasis is the POSITIVE--on helping seniors to stay as mobile as they can be for as long as possible. We hope through the use of these indicators that our community planners will gain the foresight to put in place appropriate support systems and mobility “assists”—be they human or technological, to allow seniors to achieve their personal optimum level of mobility.

But how do we convince DECISION MAKERS to invest in mobility “assists” for future senior/elder residents? Getting funding for non-acute care services is tough enough. But, getting decision makers to invest in FUTURE non-acute care (PREVENTION) services is even tougher. While PLANNERS may clearly see the need to spend monies for preventive services, convincing cash-strapped, and short-range thinking community leaders to invest in such programs is something else again. We have found, and you I am sure you have as well, that the CLEARER THE PRESENTATION of facts, the better the chance that a program may be allowed to go forward. 

Now, the information contained in our Senior MoAbility Indicator set makes a powerful argument for investing in future programs, but statistics can be very mind numbing—and decision makers have notoriously short attention spans—especially on human services issues. GRAPHIC presentation of he facts of a proposal can be of enormous help in “selling” your argument. In order to take advantage of this fact we have begun using simple and colorful mapping graphics to “spice” up our presentations.

Now, my husband Warren is going to tell you about a simple, but powerful Geographic Information System (GIS) tool that you can AFFORD--$129—and which may help you convince those hard-nosed financial types on your appropriations committee of the wisdom

of your funding proposal. Following that he will show you a few sample mapping slides from our recent presentations. Warren . . . .