skip to main content
10.1145/3461564.3461586acmotherconferencesArticle/Chapter ViewAbstractPublication Pagesc-n-tConference Proceedingsconference-collections
research-article
Public Access

Constructing Well-being Together: Older Adults Engagement in Coproduction Through Volunteering

Published: 21 June 2021 Publication History

Abstract

Many older adults participate in the local community through volunteering, and oftentimes they not only contribute positively to the community, but also become more attuned to an active and healthy lifestyle. Furthermore, engaging in reciprocal activities, known as coproduction, can facilitate older adults to boost their well-being. In this study, we are interested in understanding how older adults engage in coproduction with one another when volunteering, and how these coproductions support their well-being. We conducted interviews and observations with 19 healthy older adults who are part of a local water monitoring volunteer group. Our findings suggest that older adult’s well-being is supported through four facets of coproduction; a sense of purpose, mutual support, engaged problem solving and co-location enabled physicality. We suggest that designing technologies to support coproduction should consider increasing the visibility of synergy as well as bring awareness to coproduction outcomes.

References

[1]
Daniel P Aldrich. 2011. The power of people: social capital’s role in recovery from the 1995 Kobe earthquake. Natural hazards 56, 3 (2011), 595–611.
[2]
Aaron Antonovsky. 1991. The structural sources of salutogenic strengths.(1991).
[3]
Ingrid Arreola, Zan Morris, Matthew Francisco, Kay Connelly, Kelly Caine, and Ginger White. 2014. From checking on to checking in: designing for low socio-economic status older adults. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 1933–1936.
[4]
Kate Mary Bennett. 2002. Low level social engagement as a precursor of mortality among people in later life. Age and Ageing 31, 3 (2002), 165–168.
[5]
Marc-Eric Bobillier Chaumon, Christine Michel, Franck Tarpin Bernard, and Bernard Croisile. 2014. Can ICT improve the quality of life of elderly adults living in residential home care units? From actual impacts to hidden artefacts. Behaviour & Information Technology 33, 6 (2014), 574–590.
[6]
Tony Bovaird. 2007. Beyond engagement and participation: User and community coproduction of public services. Public administration review 67, 5 (2007), 846–860.
[7]
Tony Bovaird and Elke Loeffler. 2012. From engagement to co-production: The contribution of users and communities to outcomes and public value. Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations 23, 4(2012), 1119–1138.
[8]
David Boyle and Michael Harris. 2009. The challenge of co-production. London: New Economics Foundation(2009).
[9]
Taco Brandsen and Marlies Honingh. 2016. Distinguishing different types of coproduction: A conceptual analysis based on the classical definitions. Public Administration Review 76, 3 (2016), 427–435.
[10]
US Census Bureau. [n.d.]. Older Americans Month: May 2017. https://www.census.gov/newsroom/facts-for-features/2017/cb17-ff08.html
[11]
Edgar Cahn. 2010. Co-Production 2.0: retrofitting human service programs to tap the renewable energy of community. Community Currency Magazine, March–April(2010), 36–39.
[12]
John M Carroll, Jiawei Chen, Chien Wen Tina Yuan, and Benjamin V Hanrahan. 2016. In search of coproduction: Smart services as reciprocal activities. Computer 49, 7 (2016), 26–32.
[13]
John M Carroll, Gregorio Convertino, Umer Farooq, and Mary Beth Rosson. 2012. The firekeepers: aging considered as a resource. Universal access in the information society 11, 1 (2012), 7–15.
[14]
Po-Ju Chang, Linda Wray, and Yeqiang Lin. 2014. Social relationships, leisure activity, and health in older adults.Health Psychology 33, 6 (2014), 516.
[15]
Kathy Charmaz. 2006. Constructing grounded theory: A practical guide through qualitative analysis. sage.
[16]
Jiawei Chen, Afsaneh Doryab, Benjamin V Hanrahan, Alaaeddine Yousfi, Jordan Beck, Xiying Wang, Victoria Bellotti, Anind K Dey, and John M Carroll. 2019. Context-Aware Coproduction: Implications for Recommendation Algorithms. In International Conference on Information. Springer, 565–577.
[17]
Jiawei Chen, Benjamin V Hanrahan, and John M Carroll. 2019. Withshare: A Mobile Application to Support Community Coproduction Activities. International Journal of Mobile Human Computer Interaction (IJMHCI) 11, 1(2019), 40–61.
[18]
Sidney Cobb. 1976. Social support as a moderator of life stress.Psychosomatic medicine(1976).
[19]
Paloma Díaz, John M Carroll, and Ignacio Aedo. 2016. Coproduction as an approach to technology-mediated citizen participation in emergency management. Future Internet 8, 3 (2016), 41.
[20]
Angela Filipe, Alicia Renedo, and Cicely Marston. 2017. The co-production of what? Knowledge, values, and social relations in health care. PLoS biology 15, 5 (2017), e2001403.
[21]
Susan T Fiske and Shelley E Taylor. 1991. Social cognition. Mcgraw-Hill Book Company.
[22]
Elena T Gonzalez, Adrienne M Jones, Linda R Harley, Daniel Burnham, Young Mi Choi, W Brad Fain, and Maysam Ghovanloo. 2014. Older adults’ perceptions of a neckwear health technology. In Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, Vol. 58. SAGE Publications Sage CA: Los Angeles, CA, 1815–1819.
[23]
Morten Jakobsen and Simon Calmar Andersen. 2013. Coproduction and equity in public service delivery. Public Administration Review 73, 5 (2013), 704–713.
[24]
Richard W Johnson, Gordon Mermin, and Cori E Uccello. 2005. When the nest egg cracks: Financial consequences of health problems, marital status changes, and job layoffs at older ages. Marital Status Changes, and Job Layoffs at Older Ages (December 2005) (2005).
[25]
Catherine Penny Hinson Langford, Juanita Bowsher, Joseph P Maloney, and Patricia P Lillis. 1997. Social support: a conceptual analysis. Journal of advanced nursing 25, 1 (1997), 95–100.
[26]
Matthew L Lee and Anind K Dey. 2011. Reflecting on pills and phone use: supporting awareness of functional abilities for older adults. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 2095–2104.
[27]
Annemarie Mol. 2008. The logic of care: Health and the problem of patient choice. Routledge.
[28]
Nancy Morrow-Howell, Jim Hinterlong, Philip A Rozario, and Fengyan Tang. 2003. Effects of volunteering on the well-being of older adults. The Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences 58, 3 (2003), S137–S145.
[29]
Juliet A Musso, Matthew M Young, and Michael Thom. 2018. Volunteerism as co-production in public service management: application to public safety in California. Public Management Review(2018), 1–22.
[30]
Björn Nygren, Lena Aléx, Elisabeth Jonsén, Yngve Gustafson, Astrid Norberg, and Berit Lundman. 2005. Resilience, sense of coherence, purpose in life and self-transcendence in relation to perceived physical and mental health among the oldest old. Aging & mental health 9, 4 (2005), 354–362.
[31]
Elinor Ostrom. 1996. Crossing the great divide: Coproduction, synergy, and development. World Development 24, 6 (June 1996), 1073–1087. https://doi.org/10.1016/0305-750X(96)00023-X
[32]
Vincent Ostrom and Elinor Ostrom. 1977. Public goods and public choices. 1977 (1977), 7–49.
[33]
Rocco Palumbo. 2016. Contextualizing co-production of health care: a systematic literature review. International Journal of Public Sector Management 29, 1(2016), 72–90.
[34]
Rocco Palumbo and Rosalba Manna. 2018. What if things go wrong in co-producing health services? Exploring the implementation problems of health care co-production. Policy and Society 37, 3 (2018), 368–385.
[35]
Cristhian Parra, Patricia Silveira, Iman Khaghani Far, Florian Daniel, Eling D De Bruin, Luca Cernuzzi, Vincenzo D’Andrea, Fabio Casati, 2014. Information technology for active ageing: A review of theory and practice. Foundations and Trends® in Human–Computer Interaction 7, 4(2014), 351–448.
[36]
Vanessa Pinfold, Paulina Szymczynska, Sarah Hamilton, Richard Peacocke, Shirley Dean, Naomi Clewett, Jill Manthorpe, and John Larsen. 2015. Co-production in mental health research: reflections from the People Study. Mental Health Review Journal 20, 4 (2015), 220–231.
[37]
Robert D Putnam. 1993. The prosperous community. The american prospect 4, 13 (1993), 35–42.
[38]
Fabian Sailer, Monika Pobiruchin, Martin Wiesner, and Gerrit Meixner. 2015. An approach to improve medication adherence by smart watches. In MIE. 956–958.
[39]
Theresa L Scott, Barbara M Masser, and Nancy A Pachana. 2015. Exploring the health and wellbeing benefits of gardening for older adults. Ageing & Society 35, 10 (2015), 2176–2200.
[40]
Gill Seyfang. 2003. Growing cohesive communities one favour at a time: social exclusion, active citizenship and time banks. International Journal of urban and regional Research 27, 3 (2003), 699–706.
[41]
CJA Van Eijk and TPS Steen. 2014. Why people co-produce: Analysing citizens’ perceptions on co-planning engagement in health care services. Public Management Review 16, 3 (2014), 358–382.
[42]
John Vines, Gary Pritchard, Peter Wright, Patrick Olivier, and Katie Brittain. 2015. An age-old problem: Examining the discourses of ageing in HCI and strategies for future research. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI) 22, 1(2015), 2.
[43]
Vasillis Vlachokyriakos, Clara Crivellaro, Christopher A Le Dantec, Eric Gordon, Pete Wright, and Patrick Olivier. 2016. Digital civics: Citizen empowerment with and through technology. In Proceedings of the 2016 CHI conference extended abstracts on human factors in computing systems. ACM, 1096–1099.
[44]
Xiying Wang, Tiffany Knearem, and John M Carroll. 2018. Ordinary Innovations of Older Adults: An Interview Study to Understand Interest Development in Aging. In Companion of the 2018 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing. ACM, 253–256.
[45]
Darren ER Warburton, Crystal Whitney Nicol, and Shannon SD Bredin. 2006. Health benefits of physical activity: the evidence. Canadian medical association journal 174, 6 (2006), 801–809.
[46]
Chien Wen Yuan, Benjamin V Hanrahan, Mary Beth Rosson, and John M Carroll. 2018. Coming of old age: understanding older adults’ engagement and needs in coproduction activities for healthy ageing. Behaviour & Information Technology 37, 3 (2018), 232–246.
[47]
Chien Wen Yuan, Jessica Kropczynski, Richard Wirth, Mary Beth Rosson, and John M Carroll. 2017. Investigating older adults’ social networks and coproduction activities for health. In Proceedings of the 11th EAI International Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare. ACM, 68–77.
[48]
Chien Wen (Tina) Yuan, Benjamin V. Hanrahan, Richard Wirth, Mary Beth Rosson, and John M. Carroll. 2017. We Are Healthier Together: Designing for Technology-mediated Health Coproductions by Older Adults. In Proceedings of the 11th EAI International Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare(PervasiveHealth ’17). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 488–491. https://doi.org/10.1145/3154862.3154899
[49]
Robert B Zajonc. 1965. Social facilitation. Science 149, 3681 (1965), 269–274.

Cited By

View all
  • (2024)Developing Resilience through Retiree VolunteerismCompanion Proceedings of the 29th International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces10.1145/3640544.3645243(147-149)Online publication date: 5-Apr-2024
  • (2024)Designing for Inclusive Experiences: Investigating Opportunities for Supporting Older Adults in Community-based Social ProgramsProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3641892(1-20)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
  • (2023)Participación ciudadana de adultos mayores en modernización estatal: Una revisión de la literaturaLATAM Revista Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades10.56712/latam.v4i5.13214:5Online publication date: 7-Nov-2023

Recommendations

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Other conferences
C&T '21: Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Communities & Technologies - Wicked Problems in the Age of Tech
June 2021
345 pages
ISBN:9781450390569
DOI:10.1145/3461564
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 21 June 2021

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Check for updates

Author Tags

  1. Coproduction
  2. Older Adults
  3. Well-being

Qualifiers

  • Research-article
  • Research
  • Refereed limited

Funding Sources

Conference

C&T '21
C&T '21: Communities & Technologies 2021
June 20 - 25, 2021
WA, Seattle, USA

Acceptance Rates

Overall Acceptance Rate 80 of 183 submissions, 44%

Contributors

Other Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

  • Downloads (Last 12 months)185
  • Downloads (Last 6 weeks)49
Reflects downloads up to 22 Sep 2024

Other Metrics

Citations

Cited By

View all
  • (2024)Developing Resilience through Retiree VolunteerismCompanion Proceedings of the 29th International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces10.1145/3640544.3645243(147-149)Online publication date: 5-Apr-2024
  • (2024)Designing for Inclusive Experiences: Investigating Opportunities for Supporting Older Adults in Community-based Social ProgramsProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3641892(1-20)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
  • (2023)Participación ciudadana de adultos mayores en modernización estatal: Una revisión de la literaturaLATAM Revista Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades10.56712/latam.v4i5.13214:5Online publication date: 7-Nov-2023

View Options

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

PDF

eReader

View online with eReader.

eReader

HTML Format

View this article in HTML Format.

HTML Format

Get Access

Login options

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

Share

Share

Share this Publication link

Share on social media