Sensors for Monitoring Isolation and Loneliness among Older People: New Pathways for Early Identification and Support

Background 

Loneliness poses a major risk to older people’s physical and mental health and impacts every community in post-pandemic Ireland.  Through smartphones, wearable and ambient sensing technology, it is now possible to identify loneliness and offer supports before problems arise.  However, older people, services and policymakers have not been adequately included in the design of these technologies, meaning important ethical and usability issues have arisen.

Aims and Objectives

This project, in collaboration with ALONE, will create opportunities for dialogue between older people, stakeholders, and researchers.  Bringing diverse voices together, it will build an agenda to improve research, inform policy and services, and develop a network for future collaboration. 

Reflecting rapid innovation in wearable/ambient sensing technology for loneliness, SMILE aims to build a transdisciplinary, engaged network.  In partnership with ALONE, SMILE will bring together community stakeholders with researchers to identify research, policy and service priorities that respond to the social, ethical and technological possibilities of sensing.

This will be achieved through the following objectives:

• Create participatory mechanisms to share diverse perspectives across communities and disciplines. 
• Elicit views of community stakeholders and integrate community-derived knowledge with transdisciplinary research developments.
• Harness dialogue across sectors and disciplines to agree priorities and a plan for engaged research that keeps pace with technological innovation.

Funder & Dates

This project is funded under the Irish Research Council's New Foundations Programme from December 2023-December 2024.

Contact

Professor Eleanor Bantry White (PI) at: e.bantrywhite@ucc.ie