The experiences of everyday travel for older people in rural areas: A systematic review of UK qualitative studies

Document summary

Older people make up a larger proportion of the rural than urban population and rely more heavily on its transport system than younger age groups. We undertook a systematic review of qualitative studies to understand more about their experiences of everyday travel. As transport patterns, including car ownership and public transport, vary between countries; we focused our review on studies undertaken in the UK. We searched for studies in English language journals using health, social science, age- and transport-related databases, supplementing the searches with advice from researchers in the field. Ten studies, reported in 12 papers, met the inclusion criteria. The data, consisting of participant accounts and author interpretations, were analysed using thematic synthesis, an iterative process that moves from data-coding to descriptive themes and then to cross-cutting analytical themes. From this, three analytical themes were identified and refined through feedback from policy advisors. The first theme related to the experience of living with an inadequate transport system. The second and third themes highlighted the practical importance of everyday travel in enabling older people to maintain their lives and its symbolic importance in affirming valued identities. While everyday travel – on foot, by public and community transport and by car – facilitated access to health-related goods and services (for example, food shops and health services), it is its broader contribution to quality of life in older age that our review highlights.