Living and eating on a shoestring in old age
Participatory research towards improvement
The number of people at risk of poverty in Germany is increasing. Their lining conditions are often characterised by poorer nutritional status and overall health, less favourable housing conditions and less social participation. In the case of older people, this is exacerbated by the fact that they have almost no means of recovering from poverty. Improving their situation is thus of great relevance to society.
This is where the research project “ELSinA - Ernährungs- und Lebenssituation von Seniorinnen und Senioren in Armut” (Nutritional situation and living conditions of senior citizens in poverty) comes in. ELSinA is co-creating a plan of action to improve the nutritional situation and living conditions. The project focuses on changing the circumstances of life of senior citizens living in monetary poverty in private households. To get a better understanding of their life circumstances, the first step is to capture individual senior citizens’ situation – because at the moment, there are hardly any qualitative or quantitative data about the nutritional situation and living conditions of people from 65 years living in monetary poverty in Germany.
ELSinA does not only do research on seniors living on a shoestring but involves them in it, as well. As experts of their own living reality they have a central role in the project. It is also planned to include people working in social organisations or social initiatives who have an overview of the living conditions of older people in monetary poverty. Moreover, the knowledge of stakeholders in various areas such as civil society, politics, business and science is required. By incorporating different perspectives, the measures being developed jointly should meet the needs and realities of those affected and prove practicable to a large extent.
The approach: As a basis, MRI researchers are working together with ten senior citizens to capture their nutritional situation and living conditions. Moreover, people working in social organisations or social initiatives are cooperating with the senior citizens to identify the most important needs of older people living in monetary poverty in Germany. The main focus is always on how the seniors´ nutritional situation and living conditions can be improved. Subsequently, those involved to date and other stakeholders will model the most important needs for change in their relationships. In a series of workshops, viable leverage points will be sought and appropriate packages of measures developed. Taken together, these packages of measures should hold great potential for improving the situation.
Launched in mid-2023, ELSinA runs until the end of 2026.
ELSinA´s ambition to trigger change is no easy task. for the nutritional situation and living conditions of individuals are shaped by diverse and far-reaching influencing factors and their interactions. In order to make changes, the various interests, goals, participatory options and expertise of all those involved in the process must be considered. The ELSinA project consequently adopts a transformation-oriented approach to meet these challenges – an approach that was developed at the Department of Nutritional Behaviour at MRI and that combines empirical social research, systems science, and transdisciplinarity.