The Effects of Mobility in Later Life : A Multidisciplinary Systematic Review

Mobility in later life is a key determinant in modern societies dealing with ageing population. Despite being studied in medicine, sociology and transport, this topic displayed findings which have been exploited within each discipline independently. Thus, potential spillovers have not been pointed out yet. Contributing to filling this gap, this study is a multidisciplinary systematic review aiming at informing about the impacts of elderly mobility on dimensions of well-being and quality of life. We searched for peer-reviewed articles published from 2010-2019, by scanning some relevant electronic databases (Scopus, Web of Science, PubMed and TRID). 78 studies met the inclusion criteria, of which about 70% come from medical, 14% from transport and 16% from sociological literature. Interestingly, a large variability in ways of defining the mobility of the elderly was detected, together with a number of discipline-specific measures and related effects. Since the topic of elderly mobility is indeed multidisciplinary, fruitful synergies among scholars are strongly encouraged in the future