SCC-RCN: One Bridge at a Time: Bridging the Digital Divide for the Well-Being of Aging Populations in Smart and Connected Communities

要实现真正的智能和互联社区并提高公民的生活质量，关键是不仅要了解所有社区部分的需求，还要了解响应这些需求所需的设备，以便提高生活质量并提供移动性和接入。社区特征(例如，人口、包括收入水平在内的社会经济因素)和城市密度(即，城市与农村)影响社区经济、社会和身体健康所需的服务和必要的联系。社区的智能化和连通性在很大程度上依赖于技术发展和工具，这些技术发展和工具大多是自然出现的，发展迅速，经常扰乱现有做法。此外，对于老龄化人口，行动限制(身体、认知和/或感知)可能会阻碍行动，并导致个人失去获得关键服务(即保健服务)和良好生活质量所需的活动(如与朋友见面)的机会。在这种流动限制的情况下，应为个人的福祉确立服务(和货物)向个人的流动。智能互联社区(S和CC)具有如此巨大的潜力，可以通过高效地满足老龄化人口的关键需求来帮助解决这些问题和改善他们的生活。然而，老龄化人口也面临着身体、认知和经济方面的挑战，难以采用能够改善他们生活的上述技术，并导致S与CC战略的全面实施。该研究协调网络的目标是开发一个协作性的、多学科的研究平台，研究S与建筑环境(例如，不同的城市密度和人口结构)之间的关系，并以创建S协调网络为中心，将人口老龄化纳入其中，以改善美国日益增长的老龄化人口的福利。研究协调网络将专注于与人口老龄化相关的三个方面：1)交通，2)公共安全/紧急服务，3)住房。这些重点领域都将服务于RCN的主要目标，即为老龄化人口保持流动性和获得服务的机会。加拿大皇家研究中心通过以下方式推进S CC的研究：(A)整合和协调社会科学和工程学领域对S CC的研究；(B)将在各自领域开展研究的国内和国际研究人员和社区组织联系起来，并在符合S CC跨学科性质的网络内应对S CC的挑战；(C)引入城市密度对S CC影响的讨论；协调委员会与地理上不同的机构和社区群体合作，可扩展到农村地区；(D)确定城市和农村老年社区目前的交通选择所面临的流动挑战和需求；(E)将城市和农村环境中相对被忽视的弱势群体纳入S协调委员会的背景下，并提供一个为全体人口服务的全面的S协调委员会框架；(F)在S领导下以全面方式处理数字鸿沟的概念；(G)创建一个合作平台，讨论、记录和分享人口老龄化方面的理论和实践方法以及必要的数据来源；以及(H)建立渠道，在国家和国际范围内调查S与人口老龄化委员会在老龄人口问题上的实施情况，并向政策制定者通报成功做法的可扩展性和可推广性。RCN拥有来自各地的研究人员和社区组织的独特组成。这种特殊的背景组合创造了一个肥沃的跨学科环境，有可能推动S与CC的整体研究沿着多个前沿发展。这些年轻的研究人员，不仅包括本科生和研究生，也包括高中生，他们是在多学科的RCN环境中培养出来的，他们有望成为S研究的未来领导者。区域城市网络的范围包括不同的国家城市密度，以及国际影响范围，这使得它有很大的潜力向政策制定者和市政府提供最佳实践，以及关于采用、教育和整合新兴的S和CC技术的最佳战略。

To achieve truly smart and connected communities and improve the quality of life for citizens, it is crucial to understand not only the needs of all community segments but also the devices necessary to respond to those needs in order to improve quality of life and provide mobility and access. Community characteristics (e.g., demographics, socioeconomic factors including income level) and urban density (i.e., urban vs. rural) influence the required services and necessary connectedness for a community's economic, social and physical health. Smart-ness and connected-ness of communities rely heavily on technological developments and tools which are mostly emergent in nature, evolve rapidly, and often disrupt the existing practices. In addition, for the aging population, mobility restrictions (physical, cognitive, and/or perceptual) can deter movement, and result in individuals' loss of accessibility to crucial services (i.e., health services) and activities needed for a good quality of life (i.e., meeting with friends). In case of such mobility restrictions, the movement of services (and goods) to the individuals should be established for their well-being. Smart and Connected Communities (S&CC) have such a significant potential to help solve these problems and improve the lives of the aging population through satisfying their crucial needs in an efficient manner. However, the aging population also faces physical, cognitive and economic challenges to adopting technologies which would enable the aforementioned improvements in their lives and lead to comprehensive implementation of S&CC strategies. The objective of this Research Coordination Network (RCN) is to develop a collaborative, multidisciplinary research platform and to study the relationship between S&CC and the built environment (e.g., varying urban densities and demographics), centered on creating S&CC that incorporate the aging population to improve the welfare of growing aging population in the U.S. The RCN will focus on three thrusts related to the aging population: 1) transportation, 2) public safety/emergency services, and 3) housing. These focus areas will all serve the RCN's main objective of maintaining mobility and access to services for the aging population. The RCN advances the S&CC research by (a) integrating and coordinating research on S&CC across the social sciences and engineering, (b) connecting national and international researchers and community organizations, who otherwise carry out studies in their respective fields with limited interaction, and tackling S&CC challenges within a network which is true to the interdisciplinary nature of S&CC, (c) introducing the discussion of urban density impacts on S&CC with a geographically diverse group of institutions and communities, which can be scalable to rural locations, (d) identifying the mobility challenges and needs with the current transportation options in both urban and rural older communities, (e) incorporating the relatively ignored disadvantaged populations, both in urban and rural settings, into the S&CC context and providing a comprehensive S&CC framework which serves the population as a whole, (f) approaching the concept of the digital divide in a comprehensive manner under S&CC, (g) creating a collaborative platform to discuss, document and share theoretical and practical approaches as well as necessary data sources for the aging population, and (h) establishing avenues to investigate S&CC implementations for the aging population on a national and international scale, and informing policy makers of the scalability and transferability of successful practices. The RCN has a unique composition of researchers and community organizations from various localities. This special mix of backgrounds creates a fertile interdisciplinary environment which has the potential to advance S&CC research as a whole along multiple frontiers. The young researchers, including not only undergraduate and graduate students but also high school students, who are nurtured within the multidisciplinary RCN environment, are expected to be the future leaders in S&CC research. The RCN's scope of varying national urban density, as well as the international reach, lead to a high potential to inform policy makers and city governments with the best practices, as well as best strategies for the adoption, education and integration with respect to the emerging S&CC technologies.