Many more people living with dementia are and will inhabit public built and social environments, and adaptations of existing spaces, programs, services and polices are required to foster equitable inclusion of people with dementia. Yet, how dementia is situated within the scope of municipal mandates and responsibilities to meet community needs is unclear. This research will address a clear gap in knowledge regarding the intersecting factors shape social citizenship for people with dementia and will contribute to advancing EDI and accessibility policy and practice within municipal settings.
The primary goal of the proposed research is to leverage academic-community partnerships to foster equity and inclusion for people living with dementia through an examination of how upstream factors, e.g., municipal processes and policies intersect with a persons identities (e.g. ethnicity, gender, class status, (dis) abilities) as a social citizen.
The research question guiding this study is How can municipal mandates foster the equitable inclusion of people living with dementia? Namely, the study will seek to understand the intersecting factors that shape social citizenship and use of public built and social environments for diverse people living with dementia, and will explore how EDI and accessibility mandates can foster inclusion of people living with dementia within municipal spaces, services, programs and policies.
This study will use a community based participatory approach informed by an intersectionality lens. Coproduction methods will be used to invite people living with dementia and other research collaborators to explore the factors that shape social citizenship and to illuminate relationships between people with dementia and the public physical and social environments within in the City of Victoria.
The intern will gain valuable experience codesigning research with knowledge users, facilitating community based research, implementing coproduction and reflexive thematic analysis methods, integrating academic and grey literature to support findings and recommendations, and undertaking knowledge mobilization in collaboration with diverse stakeholders.
The intersecting factors that shape the experience of dementia are amplified by the fear and incomprehension of dementia that is present in wider society, therefore research must not only advocate but develop new community-based approaches that respond to the complexities experienced by people with dementia in public life. This project jointly addresses an identified scholarly need for research investigating factors that operationalization social citizenship for people with dementia, and an equally critical community need to produce local knowledge useful to understand the role EDI and accessibility mandates and policies play in fostering equitable inclusion of people with dementia in public spaces.