Webinar inspired around fifty participants
On 24 April, the research project Accessible nature to promote active and healthy aging held a webinar. Around fifty participants who work with or are interested in the elderly and natural environments in various ways shared research results and inspiration with each other.
"We organised the webinar because it is important to reach out widely with our research and spread knowledge and good examples on issues related to increased health and well-being. We want to increase knowledge about the connection between health and spending time in natural environments and contribute to more proactive public health work. We also want to emphasize inclusive perspectives on outdoor activities and that lack of accessibility excludes many people from everyday nature experiences," says Sandra Wall-Reinius, research leader.
Both researchers and representatives from municipalities, county administrative boards and regions participated in the webinar, which offered three hours of knowledge and inspiration about what research and the work to make nature accessible to older adults looks like right now. The research project's own researchers Kristin Godtman Kling, Magnus Zingmark, Rosemarie Ankre and Emma Landby from Mid Sweden University and Umeå University were some of those who presented, together with researchers from KTH and the Universities of Lund, Gothenburg and Stockholm.
Elin Pettersson works as a health educator at Uppsala Municipality and thought that the webinar provided many new insights. Together with Eva Arnemo, public health strategist at the Uppland Foundation, she shared how they work with outdoor activities for the elderly through the project "Träffpunkten moves out".
The participants of the webinar got to take part in many good examples from Elin Pettersson and Eva Arnemo's work.
"After a busy morning with many interesting presentations about outdoor activities for the elderly, I feel more motivated to continue our work to ensure that all Träffpunkt 65+ within Uppsala municipality offer outdoor activities. There is so much to suggest that our work with outdoor activities really makes a difference for the elderly. They are not a homogeneous group and from that perspective, the activities offered should vary to stimulate everyone," says Elin Pettersson.
Research leader Sandra Wall-Reinius was also pleased with the day.
"There were many interesting presentations that complemented each other nicely. It is clear that it is a relevant and current field of research and the webinar provided inspiration for new studies. At the same time, we are in the final phase of the project, where we primarily work with our scientific publications and create educational materials and skills development courses on inclusive and accessible natural environments.
Here you can take part of the presentations from the project's own researchers (in Swedish)
Read the webinar brochure with short summaries of all presentations (In Swedish)