IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/trapol/v120y2022icp69-79.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Impact of health on driving for America's older adults: A nationwide, longitudinal study

Author

Listed:
  • Wang, Xize

Abstract

By 2030, one in every five Americans will be 65 or older. To better serve the mobility needs of a rapidly aging population, a better understanding of older adults' driving behavior is needed. This study explores the impact of health on driving reduction for America's older adults, using a nationwide, longitudinal dataset from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). I propose two outcome variables: having driven in the past month, and having driven beyond nearby places; and measure health using overall self-rated health status and specific sensory, mobility and physical conditions. Controlling for socio-demographics, residential patterns, personal fixed effects, time fixed effects, and regional fixed effects, I find that older adults with lower self-rated health were less likely to drive or drive beyond nearby places. The magnitudes of such effects vary by race but not by gender. I also identify specific health conditions that could predict driving reduction. The findings imply that in the near future, there will be a large number of older adults suffering from unmet travel demands due to declining health conditions. Hence, planners and policy makers should be proactive in seeking for solutions, including using my findings to identify at-risk older drivers and provide various types of mobility assistance.

Suggested Citation

  • Wang, Xize, 2022. "Impact of health on driving for America's older adults: A nationwide, longitudinal study," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 69-79.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:trapol:v:120:y:2022:i:c:p:69-79
    DOI: 10.1016/j.tranpol.2022.02.005
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0967070X22000440
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.tranpol.2022.02.005?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Briana Mezuk & George W. Rebok, 2008. "Social Integration and Social Support Among Older Adults Following Driving Cessation," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 63(5), pages 298-303.
    2. Zijlstra, Toon & Durand, Anne & Hoogendoorn-Lanser, Sascha & Harms, Lucas, 2020. "Early adopters of Mobility-as-a-Service in the Netherlands," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 197-209.
    3. Reid Ewing & Robert Cervero, 2010. "Travel and the Built Environment," Journal of the American Planning Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 76(3), pages 265-294.
    4. Jerri D. Edwards & Lesley A. Ross & Michelle L. Ackerman & Brent J. Small & Karlene K. Ball & Stacy Bradley & Joan E. Dodson, 2008. "Longitudinal Predictors of Driving Cessation Among Older Adults From the ACTIVE Clinical Trial," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 63(1), pages 6-12.
    5. Shin, Eun Jin, 2017. "Ethnic neighborhoods, social networks, and inter-household carpooling: A comparison across ethnic minority groups," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 14-26.
    6. Macfarlane, Gregory S. & Garrow, Laurie A. & Mokhtarian, Patricia L., 2015. "The influences of past and present residential locations on vehicle ownership decisions," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 186-200.
    7. Susanne Nordbakke & Tim Schwanen, 2015. "Transport, unmet activity needs and wellbeing in later life: exploring the links," Transportation, Springer, vol. 42(6), pages 1129-1151, November.
    8. Lucas, Karen, 2012. "Transport and social exclusion: Where are we now?," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 20(C), pages 105-113.
    9. Metz, D. H., 2000. "Mobility of older people and their quality of life," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 149-152, April.
    10. Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris & Martin Wachs & Miriam Pinski, 2019. "Toward a Richer Picture of the Mobility Needs of Older Americans," Journal of the American Planning Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 85(4), pages 482-500, October.
    11. Carlo Luiu & Miles Tight & Michael Burrow, 2017. "The unmet travel needs of the older population: a review of the literature," Transport Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(4), pages 488-506, July.
    12. Alsnih, Rahaf & Hensher, David A., 2003. "The mobility and accessibility expectations of seniors in an aging population," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 37(10), pages 903-916, December.
    13. Hou, Yuting & Yap, Winston & Chua, Rochelle & Song, Siqi & Yuen, Belinda, 2020. "The associations between older adults’ daily travel pattern and objective and perceived built environment: A study of three neighbourhoods in Singapore," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 314-328.
    14. Cheng, Long & Shi, Kunbo & De Vos, Jonas & Cao, Mengqiu & Witlox, Frank, 2021. "Examining the spatially heterogeneous effects of the built environment on walking among older adults," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 21-30.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gupta, Monik & Velaga, Nagendra R. & Oviedo-Trespalacios, Oscar, 2024. "Understanding risky driving among motorized two-wheeler drivers: The role of time-related anxiety and impunctuality," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 199-210.
    2. Wang, Xize & Renne, John L., 2023. "Socioeconomics of Urban Travel in the U.S.: Evidence from the 2017 NHTS," SocArXiv cdw2y, Center for Open Science.
    3. Xize Wang & John L. Renne, 2023. "Socioeconomics of Urban Travel in the U.S.: Evidence from the 2017 NHTS," Papers 2303.04812, arXiv.org.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Wang, Xize, 2022. "Impact of Health on Driving for America's Older Adults: A Nationwide, Longitudinal Study," SocArXiv h5scf, Center for Open Science.
    2. Mitra, Suman & Yao, Mingqi & Ritchie, Stephen G., 2021. "Gender differences in elderly mobility in the United States," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 154(C), pages 203-226.
    3. He, Sylvia Y. & Cheung, Yannie H.Y. & Tao, Sui, 2018. "Travel mobility and social participation among older people in a transit metropolis: A socio-spatial-temporal perspective," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 608-626.
    4. Buehler, Ralph & Pucher, John & Wittwer, Rico & Gerike, Regine, 2024. "Trends and determinants of the mobility of older adults in the USA and Germany, 2001–2017," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 183(C).
    5. Ma, Jingwen & Zhao, Shengchuan & Li, Wu & Liu, Meng & Luo, Huanhuan, 2022. "Heterogeneity in seniors' unmet walking needs: A latent class analysis," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    6. Luiu, Carlo & Tight, Miles, 2021. "Travel difficulties and barriers during later life: Evidence from the National Travel Survey in England," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    7. Yang, Linchuan & Ao, Yibin & Ke, Jintao & Lu, Yi & Liang, Yuan, 2021. "To walk or not to walk? Examining non-linear effects of streetscape greenery on walking propensity of older adults," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    8. Spinney, Jamie E.L. & Newbold, K. Bruce & Scott, Darren M. & Vrkljan, Brenda & Grenier, Amanda, 2020. "The impact of driving status on out-of-home and social activity engagement among older Canadians," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    9. Li, Shengxiao (Alex) & Duan, Hongyu (Anna) & Smith, Tony E. & Hu, Haoyu, 2021. "Time-varying accessibility to senior centers by public transit in Philadelphia," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 245-258.
    10. Huiran Han & Kai Yang & Chengfeng Yang & Gang Yang & Lingyi Xu, 2022. "Influence and Mechanism of a Multi-Scale Built Environment on the Leisure Activities of the Elderly: Evidence from Hefei City in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(15), pages 1-24, July.
    11. Timothée Cuignet & Camille Perchoux & Geoffrey Caruso & Olivier Klein & Sylvain Klein & Basile Chaix & Yan Kestens & Philippe Gerber, 2020. "Mobility among older adults: Deconstructing the effects of motility and movement on wellbeing," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 57(2), pages 383-401, February.
    12. Martens, Karel, 2018. "Ageing, impairments and travel: Priority setting for an inclusive transport system," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 122-130.
    13. Cheng, Long & Chen, Xuewu & Yang, Shuo & Cao, Zhan & De Vos, Jonas & Witlox, Frank, 2019. "Active travel for active ageing in China: The role of built environment," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 142-152.
    14. Carlo Luiu & Miles Tight & Michael Burrow, 2018. "Factors Preventing the Use of Alternative Transport Modes to the Car in Later Life," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(6), pages 1-21, June.
    15. Willberg, Elias & Fink, Christoph & Toivonen, Tuuli, 2023. "The 15-minute city for all? – Measuring individual and temporal variations in walking accessibility," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    16. Ravensbergen, Léa & Newbold, K Bruce & Ganann, Rebecca & Sinding, Christina, 2021. "‘Mobility work’: Older adults' experiences using public transportation," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    17. Marie Geraldine Herrmann-Lunecke & Cristhian Figueroa-Martínez & Francisca Parra Huerta & Rodrigo Mora, 2022. "The Disabling City: Older Persons Walking in Central Neighbourhoods of Santiago de Chile," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(17), pages 1-19, September.
    18. Van Acker, Veronique & Ho, Loan & Stevens, Larissa & Mulley, Corinne, 2020. "Quantifying the effects of childhood and previous residential experiences on the use of public transport," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    19. He, Mingwei & He, Chengfeng & Shi, Zhuangbin & He, Min, 2022. "Spatiotemporal heterogeneous effects of socio-demographic and built environment on private car usage: An empirical study of Kunming, China," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    20. Su, Rongxiang & Xiao, Jingyi & McBride, Elizabeth C. & Goulias, Konstadinos G., 2021. "Understanding senior's daily mobility patterns in California using human mobility motifs," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:trapol:v:120:y:2022:i:c:p:69-79. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/30473/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.