Understudied Older Populations and Settings in Environmental Gerontology: Candidates for Future Research

Environmental gerontologists from several disciplines focus on an overarching primary goal: to discover and apply information about person-environment transactions to produce more sanguine relationships between older adults and the environments they inhabit. As we move into the second decade of the 21st century, it is appropriate to conduct a roll-call of populations of older individuals who deserve but have not yet received adequate empirical attention. The purpose of this paper is two-fold. First, we contrast benefits derived from an environmental gerontology of the usual with those associated from conducting research on understudied populations and their environmental contexts. We also offer reasons that may explain why environmental gerontology has not placed the study of these older individuals and settings more prominently on the empirical radar screen. Second, we present two understudied subpopulations of elders living in voluntarily and involuntarily selected environments-older male and female prisoners and older residents of declining and dying small rural towns. We provide some examples of issues and research questions of potential relevance to environmental gerontologists who may be interested in entering each of these venues.