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Rethinking Technological Solutions for Community-Based Older Adult Care: Insights from 'Older Partners' in China

Yuing Sun, Sam Addison Ankenbauer, Zhifan Guo, Yuchen Chen, Xiaojuan Ma, Liang He

TL;DR

This study investigates aging in place in Shanghai, China, by contrasting technology-driven and human-driven care infrastructures within a large-scale urban context. Using two years of ethnographic fieldwork, including six communities and 24 interviews, the authors reveal that tech-enabled care systems often struggle with data silos, false alarms, and user resistance, and can unintentionally substitute human care. They argue for a supportive, rather than substitutive, role for technology and propose aging in community as a richer design objective that foregrounds social relations and mutual aid. The findings underscore the irreplaceable value of older partners in sustaining care infrastructure and offer design implications that center community mobility, trust, and autonomy in aging-in-place solutions.

Abstract

Aging in place refers to the enabling of individuals to age comfortably and securely within their own homes and communities. Aging in place relies on robust infrastructure, prompting the development and implementation of both human-led care services and information and communication technologies to provide support. Through a long-term ethnographic study that includes semi-structured interviews with 24 stakeholders, we consider these human- and technology-driven care infrastructures for aging in place, examining their origins, deployment, interactions with older adults, and challenges. In doing so, we reconsider the value of these different forms of older adult care, highlighting the various issues associated with using, for instance, health monitoring technology or appointment scheduling systems to care for older adults aging in place. We suggest that technology should take a supportive, not substitutive role in older adult care infrastructure. Furthermore, we note that designing for aging in place should move beyond a narrow focus on independence in one's home to instead encompass the broader community and its dynamics.

Rethinking Technological Solutions for Community-Based Older Adult Care: Insights from 'Older Partners' in China

TL;DR

This study investigates aging in place in Shanghai, China, by contrasting technology-driven and human-driven care infrastructures within a large-scale urban context. Using two years of ethnographic fieldwork, including six communities and 24 interviews, the authors reveal that tech-enabled care systems often struggle with data silos, false alarms, and user resistance, and can unintentionally substitute human care. They argue for a supportive, rather than substitutive, role for technology and propose aging in community as a richer design objective that foregrounds social relations and mutual aid. The findings underscore the irreplaceable value of older partners in sustaining care infrastructure and offer design implications that center community mobility, trust, and autonomy in aging-in-place solutions.

Abstract

Aging in place refers to the enabling of individuals to age comfortably and securely within their own homes and communities. Aging in place relies on robust infrastructure, prompting the development and implementation of both human-led care services and information and communication technologies to provide support. Through a long-term ethnographic study that includes semi-structured interviews with 24 stakeholders, we consider these human- and technology-driven care infrastructures for aging in place, examining their origins, deployment, interactions with older adults, and challenges. In doing so, we reconsider the value of these different forms of older adult care, highlighting the various issues associated with using, for instance, health monitoring technology or appointment scheduling systems to care for older adults aging in place. We suggest that technology should take a supportive, not substitutive role in older adult care infrastructure. Furthermore, we note that designing for aging in place should move beyond a narrow focus on independence in one's home to instead encompass the broader community and its dynamics.

Paper Structure

This paper contains 39 sections, 5 figures, 1 table.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Related Work
  3. The Turn Towards Aging in Place and Its Challenges
  4. Technology as Mediating Aging in Place
  5. Infrastructure and an Orientation Toward Aging in Community
  6. Research Context: Care Infrastructure for Older Adults Aging in Place in Shanghai
  7. Technology-Driven Care Infrastructures
  8. Human-Driven Care Infrastructures
  9. Methods
  10. Data Collection: Participant Observations
  11. Recruitment and Criteria
  12. Participant Observation
  13. Data Collection: Semi-structured Interviews
  14. Recruitment and Participants
  15. Semi-structured Interview
  16. ...and 24 more sections

Figures (5)

  • Figure 1: A timeline of a national push for technology-driven care infrastructure xiaohui
  • Figure 2: The structure of technology-driven infrastructure for aging at home
  • Figure 3: The general structure of care service systems for aging in place
  • Figure 4: Data dashboards used by different care providers
  • Figure 5: The structure of human-driven care infrastructure for aging in place