Objectives: This study examines older people's use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and identifies the factors which can prevent or promote their sustained use. Methods: A mixed methods approach was adopted. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected by a survey of 323 older ICT users (aged ≥50 years) between 2011 and 2012. These data were supplemented by qualitative data obtained through in-depth interviews, focus groups and storytelling. Quantitative data were analysed using PASW including bivariate and multivariate analyses. Qualitative data were analysed using an inductive, thematic approach. Results: The findings show that, contrary to some stereotypes, many older people are enthusiastic, competent and confident users of ICTs. However, they report a range of challenges in reaching and maintaining this situation. These include technological complexity and change, age-related capability changes and a lack of learning and support mechanisms. Intrinsic motivation and social support are important in enabling older people to overcome these challenges. Discussion: Getting older people online has been a high priority in many countries over the past decade. However, little attention has been paid to whether and how their usage can be sustained over time. We discuss the implications of the findings for policy and practice.

This paper examines the key role of formal and informal social support in reducing digital inequalities by enabling the digital participation of older people. It is based primarily on research conducted on the (anonymised) project in the UK over a four year period working with over 1000 older people using mixed research methods within a participative framework. It is further informed by other studies. The rich, multi-faceted evidence reveals on the one hand the extensive learning and support needs and requirements of older users of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and, on the other, the dearth of reliable and on-going support provision. ICT learning and support in the UK relies primarily on the goodwill of friends and family and on the availability of staff and volunteers in community venues, such as public libraries. Arrangements are often ad hoc and variable in quality and reliability. In a facilitated workshop, the learning and ICT support needs of older people and their preferred forms of provision were documented and deliberated. This generated a clear set of user requirements. To meet these requirements a proposition for community-based ICT support provision has been developed and refined. The paper concludes with consideration of this proposition which offers a powerful way to reduce the widespread digital inequalities among older people.

The low risk of TA CMV infection observed in transplant patients who received standard blood components in our study should be considered when evaluating the efficacy of programs that provide CMV-safe blood components for this population.

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Extending participation and social connectivity is now widely accepted as central to adding life to years as well as healthy years to life, and participation in the life of the community is seen as critical to wellbeing (Sen, 1992:39) and capable of addressing older people's rights, extending inclusion, reducing exclusion, easing demand on national budgets and building social cohesion. The central conundrums of increasing participation and social connectivity are, first, the intermeshing of personal, local, meso and macro level factors in shaping participation and social connectivity and, second, how the drive towards increased participation can be included in framing policy in such a way that participation is individually meaningful, social connectivity is enhanced and benefits flow to participants and to society generally. Underlying the application of the concepts of participation and social connectivity to older people is the idea that old age places people outside the mainstream; that older people's participation and social connectivity is wanting in scale or scope, that they do want or should want to participate more and that it is chiefly the impediment of old age that constrains their participation. Categorised as outside the mainstream, older people become defined by their age rather than those other salient aspects of their social identity, class, sexuality, ethnicity, education, histories and personal outlook that policy makers and implementers find difficult to respond to in relation to older people. This chapter examines older people's experiences of participation and social connectivity across a range of geographical and social locations within the UK and in low and middle income countries in order to test conceptualisations of older people's participation and social connectivity against experience, and to begin to trace out the individual, local, meso and