The Effectiveness of Reducing Social Isolation in Senior Citizens through a Website

Akhil Padmanabha and Adish Jain

Growing old is inevitable, feeling old is a choice.

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Introduction

• Talked to professionals and got extensive knowledge about senior citizens problems.
• Ms. Prathima
• Nurse Practitioner who works with senior citizens
• Dr. Rita Ghatak, Ph.D
• Director of Aging Adult Services at Stanford University
• Dr. Brittany Stevens, Ph.D
• Psychologist (guided us with our surveys)
• All three professionals seemed to have a consensus that social isolation was a major problem among seniors, which must be tackled.
• We created a website because the internet is the most accessible, quick, and efficient way get seniors connected with students and other seniors.

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Background Information

• Research from the University of Phoenix states that by 2000, 25% of all seniors faced isolation. This number increased to 40% in 2010, and is currently estimated to rise to a staggering 75% by 2020.
• Andrew Steptoe, director of the Institute of Epidemiology and Health Care at University College, London, has been studying this subject. “There is growing evidence that both loneliness and social isolation are related to biological processes that may increase health risk, including changes in immune and inflammatory processes and disruption of the stress-related hormones."
• These facts show that so many senior citizens are suffering from social isolation on a daily basis and that social isolation leads to many other negative changes in a senior citizen's life.

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Statement of Purpose

• According to Home Instead Senior Care network research:
• I feel better mentally and emotionally—98 percent of seniors who volunteer
• I am able to overcome feeling isolated—74 percent of seniors who volunteer
• I am able to overcome feeling depressed—70 percent of seniors who volunteer
• This study shows that seniors want to help others and take part in volunteering events. While helping others, senior citizens become less isolated and less depressed.
• Our website, SeniorStudentConnect, facilitates volunteering and helping others by having three main pages, the senior page, the student page, and the event page.
• Potentially, our project can reach out to all seniors that are socially isolated ( about 40% right now, and still growing)

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Problem

Will SeniorStudentConnect.com help senior citizens become less socially isolated?

The diagram above shows how if a senior citizen ends up within the vicious cycle of social isolation, it leads to many other problems and issues.

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Hypothesis

If senior citizens use seniorstudentconnect, then they will become less socially isolated because seniorstudentconnect.com is very simple and allows senior citizens to connect with other seniors, students, and look at events in their community.

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Materials

• Students
• Senior Citizens
• Wix Website Building Tool (which requires some coding)
• Computers
• Google forms

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Procedure

1. Build seniorstudentconnect.com using Wix Website Builder.
2. Share the website with seniors and students. Visit senior centers, go to community areas (e.g. libraries) and email friends to spread the word.
3. When a senior citizen joins, send an email informing them about the pre-survey.
4. Send the post survey one month after senior citizen takes the pre-survey.
5. Analyze data and draw conclusions.

Data showing Decrease in Social Isolation

This graph shows that after a month of using seniorstudentconnect.com, 5 out of the 9 senior citizens became less socially isolated. The other senior's social isolation stayed the same.

Data showing Increase in Interactions with Students

It's evident from this graph that after a month of using seniorstudentconnect.com, 7 out of the 9 senior citizens interacted with more students.

Data showing Increase in Number of Events Attended

This graph clearly shows that after a month of using seniorstudentconnect.com, 6 out of the 9 senior citizens attended one more event per week than they normally would.

Results

• Our data shows that after senior citizens used our website, 5 out of 9 of them reported that their social isolation went down
• 6 out of 9 attended more events
• 7 out of 9 interacted with more students

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• 9 seniors joined out of the 48 we informed
• we had an article in the Mountain View senior center monthly brochure
• many seniors said they would share the website with others and check it out but did not create an account

Conclusion

• Overall our data was mostly inconclusive, thus making it hard to say whether or not our hypothesis was correct.
• The senior citizens that did join our website attended more events in their communities and talked with more students. For these reasons, they felt that they faced a lesser degree of social isolation.
• However, we had a very small sample size, which can lead to many errors in the trial, and goes to show that many seniors did not want to join the website in the first place. (only 9 of 48 joined).
• As a combination, these results tell us that our website was effective for seniors that joined, but ineffective at attracting many seniors in the first place.

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Taking it a Step Further

Our analysis as to why seniors didn't join comes down to six main things:

• Language barrier
• Felt they were not good candidates
• Some forgot even though we passed out business cards
• Simply didn't want to

• Wasn't fit for them because they were already very involved in the community
• Don't have computer at home, not accessible enough for them

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• Because of this inconclusive data, we have taken our project outside the scope science fair provides to collect more data and help senior citizens around the world by:
• Sending articles to Zeka Academic Journal to raise awareness
• Made a Kickstarter Project to raise money to buy iPad minis for senior centers
• We plan to compete in the Google Science Fair competition, with the same idea, based around helping reduce social isolation.

Acknowledgments

During the course of this project, we must thank many people who helped us on many aspects of our project. First of all, we would like to thank Dr. Rita Ghatak, PhD, and Director of Aging Adult Services at Stanford University and Ms. Prathima for informing us about the many problems senior citizens face, especially social isolation. Next, we would like to thank Dr. Brittany Stevens, PhD in psychology, for helping us to phrase the questions of our surveys. Of course, we thank our parents for guiding us throughout our project, and giving us support the whole way. Finally, we thank Mrs. Alonzo, who gave us valuable suggestions and kept us on track the entire way through.

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References

Graham, Judith. "The High Price of Loneliness." The New Old Age Blog. NY times, 18 June 2012. Web. 07 Nov. 2012. <http://newoldage.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/18/the-high-price-of-loneliness/>.

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Squires, Becky. "7 Things to Know About Isolation." AARP. N.p., 23 May 2012. Web. 28 Oct. 2012. <http://www.aarp.org/aarp-foundation/our-work/isolation/info-2012/7-facts-about-social-isolation.htm>

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"Thousands of Elderly in Care Homes 'socially Isolated'" BBC News. BBC, 11 Oct. 2010. Web. 30 Oct. 2012. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-117266911>.

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"Why Seniors Volunteer." Salute to Senior Service. Home Instead Inc, 14 Jan. 2012. Web. 30 Oct. 2012. <http://www.salutetoseniorservice.com/senior-volunteer-programs/why-seniors-volunteer/>.

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