News
Living independently and happily requires confidence in our decisions, and making decisions can take longer and feel more difficult as we age. As part of a two-year project aimed at supporting older adults with everyday decision-making, researchers at Nottingham Trent University have been working with older people to understand how decision-making changes in later life and identify helpful strategies for making better decisions. From that work, and with support from Re-engage, they’ve now published a practical guide called ‘Smart choices as we age’. In a workshop using the booklet, 92% of older people said it was useful and effective.
If you live in the Nottingham area and are interested in taking part in research studies at Nottingham Trent, you can find out about their Age Panel by emailing them.
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Our current projects
The ENOLA study is an exploration of the existing and ideal social worlds of older people living in different urban environments. The project will explore the role of the neighbourhood environment in providing opportunities for social connectedness and identify recommendations to enhance social experiences of older people in urban settings.
Project status: in progress
An exploration of the impact loneliness interventions have on health and social care services, exploring whether interventions reduce or delay usage and whether an older person experiencing loneliness and isolation is more likely to use health and social care services than others.
Project status: development stage
Loneliness has attracted more coverage since the covid-19 pandemic began in 2020 and national lockdowns put social isolation high up the news agenda. In this exploratory project, we use analytic software to review thousands of national news articles to identify whether and how the language used to report on loneliness in UK newspapers has changed over the past several decades. We consider the implications of any changes on how we address loneliness and social isolation as a society.
Project status: in progress
The OCEA study involves a systematic review to understand the efficacy of services that recognise and respond to the impact of trauma on older care experienced adults and the trigger points of loneliness. The study will also explore the health and wellbeing concerns of older care experienced adults and examine support in natural settings.
Project status: in progress
The relationship between loneliness and physical health has been explored in depth, with research determining loneliness contributes to early mortality to extents similar to risk factors such as smoking and obesity (Holt-Lunstad et al. 2010). In this research we investigate the relationship between loneliness and mental health, exploring the current literature landscape, as well as data provided by our beneficiaries in our 2024 annual survey.
Project status: in progress