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

为了实现真正的智能和互联社区，提高公民的生活质量，不仅要了解所有社区群体的需求，还要了解满足这些需求所需的设备，以提高生活质量，提供移动性和访问。社区特征（例如，人口统计、社会经济因素，包括收入水平）和城市密度（即，城市与农村）影响着社区经济、社会和身体健康所需的服务和必要的连通性。社区的智能性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新兴的，发展迅速，往往会破坏现有的做法。此外，对于老龄化人口，移动性限制（身体、认知和/或感知）可能会阻碍移动，并导致个人无法获得关键服务（即，健康服务）和良好生活质量所需的活动（即，与朋友见面）。在这种流动性限制的情况下，应确定向个人提供服务（和货物）的流动是为了他们的福祉。智能互联社区（Smart and Connected Communities，简称SCC）具有巨大的潜力，可以帮助解决这些问题，并通过有效地满足老年人的关键需求来改善他们的生活。然而，老龄化人口在采用技术方面也面临着身体、认知和经济方面的挑战，这些技术将使他们的生活得到上述改善，并导致全面实施S CC战略。该研究协调网络（RCN）的目标是开发一个协作的多学科研究平台，并研究S CC与建筑环境之间的关系（例如，不同的城市密度和人口统计数据），以创建纳入老龄化人口的S CC为中心，以改善美国不断增长的老龄化人口的福利。RCN将专注于与老龄化人口相关的三个重点：1）交通，2）公共安全/紧急服务，以及3）住房。这些重点领域都将服务于RCN的主要目标，即保持老龄人口的流动性和获得服务的机会。RCN通过以下方式推进S& CC研究：（a）整合和协调&跨社会科学和工程的S CC研究，（B）连接国内和国际研究人员和社区组织，否则他们将在各自领域开展研究，互动有限，并&在一个真正符合S CC跨学科性质的网络内解决S CC挑战&，（c）&与地理上多样化的机构和社区团体讨论城市密度对S CC的影响，可以扩展到农村地区，（d）确定城市和农村老年社区目前交通选择的流动挑战和需求，（e）纳入相对被忽视的弱势群体，在城市和农村环境中，纳入老龄化社区&协调框架，并提供一个&为全体人口服务的综合老龄化社区协调框架，（f）在老龄化社区协调框架下以综合方式探讨数字鸿沟的概念&，（g）创建一个合作平台，讨论、记录和分享老龄化人口的理论和实践方法以及必要的数据来源，（h）建立途径，调查在&国家和国际范围内老龄化人口的老龄化社区协调实施情况，并向决策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的环境，有可能推进S CC研究作为一个整体沿着多个前沿。年轻的研究人员，不仅包括本科生和研究生，还包括高中生，他们在多学科的RCN环境中培养，预计将成为未来的领导者在S CC研究。RCN的范围不同的国家城市密度，以及国际影响力，导致一个高的潜力，告知决策者和城市政府的最佳做法，以及最佳战略，采用，教育和整合方面的新兴的气候变化技术。

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.