Mobility, Activity and Social Interactions in the Lives of Healthy Older Adults (MOASIS)
Project Leaders: Dr. Christina Röcke, Prof. Dr. Robert Weibel, Prof. Dr. Mike Martin
Project Members: Dr. Minxia Luo, Changyu Han, Alexandros Sofios
Original cohort of older adults at Time 1
In this project we monitor activity data from 150+ community-dwelling older adults aged 65+ years over 30 days using a custom-built sensor (“uTrail”) including a GPS tracker, an accelerometer, and a microphone to capture mobility (i.e., spatial activity), physical activity and social activity in daily life. In addition, during the first 2 weeks of wearing the uTrail, participants respond to seven daily prompts from a smartphone and record their current experiences, perceptions and feelings as well as perform a short numerical updating task as a measure of momentary working memory performance in daily life. The goal of the project is to examine within-person activity profiles both within and across domains, within-person couplings between activities, self-reports and cognition, and the degree to which a wide range of dispositional quality of life and performance measures can explain interindividual differences in the intraindividual profiles.
Longitudinal measurement burst follow-up and addition of young adults at Time 2
Starting in late spring 2025, we have begun collecting a longitudinal follow-up measurement burst, being able to re-invite about half of our original sample for a novel 2-week ecological momentary assessment (EMA) period involving the uTrail and smartphones, adding a map-based questionnaire at posttest to identify the meaning and function of trips and stops in the individual mobility trajectories. We also added key measures of views on aging to both baseline and the EMA protocol. The sample at this second measurement phase also included newly recruited older adults and a subsample of younger adults for age comparative analyses.
Links
Brief Summary on select T1-findings (PDF, 184 KB) (in German)
UZH Magazin feature 03/2023: Healthy Ageing (see p. 29)
UZH Magazin feature 04/2025: Through Zurich without barriers (see p. 48)
SNF-project profile for MAMBHA (collaborative project with MOASIS)
A cartoon video for our paper on distance from home & working memory
Setting sail for new horizons in old age (PDF, 1 MB) (in German)
Publications (involving MOASIS data)
Luo, M., Kim, E.-K., Weibel, R., Martin, M., & Röcke, C. (2025). Distance from home and working memory: Daily associations varying by neighborhood environments in community-dwelling older adults. European Journal of Ageing, 22, 17. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10433-025-00841-5
Neff, P., Demiray, B., Martin, M., & Röcke, C. (2024). Cognitive abilities predict naturalistic speech length in older adults. Scientific Reports, 14, 31031. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-82144-w
Luo, M., Moulder, R. G., Breitfelder, L. K., & Röcke, C. (2024). Activity diversity and well-being in daily life: Evidence for heterogeneity between older adults. Journals of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences, 79, gbae025. https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/gbae025
Luo, M., Moulder, R. G., Weber, E., & Röcke, C. (2023). The mediating role of affective states in short-term effects of activity engagement on working memory in older age. Gerontology, 69, 1448-1460. https://doi.org/10.1159/000534130
Luo, M.; Moulder, R. G.; & Röcke, C. (2023). The short-term effects of activity engagement on working memory performance in older age. Psychology and Aging, 38(2):117-131. https://doi.org/10.1037/pag0000727
Luo, M.; Moulder, R. G.; Breitfelder, L. K.; & Röcke, C. (2023). Daily activity diversity and daily working memory in community-dwelling older adults. Neuropsychology, 37(2):181-193. https://doi.org/10.1037/neu0000878
Röcke, C.; Luo, M.; Bereuter, P.; Katana, M.; Fillekes, M.; Gehriger, V.; Sofios, A.; Martin, M.; & Weibel, R. (2023). Charting everyday activities in later life: Study protocol of the mobility, activity, and social interactions study (MOASIS). Frontiers in Psychology, 13:1011177. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1011177
Luo, M.; Kim, E.-K.; Weibel, R.; Martin, M.; & Röcke, C. (2023). GPS-derived daily mobility and daily well-being in community-dwelling older adults. Gerontology, 69, 875-887. https://doi.org/10.1159/000527827
Kim, E.-K; Conrow, L.; Röcke, C.; Chaix, B.; Weibel, R.; & Perchoux, C. (2023). Advances and challenges in sensor-based research in mobility, health, and place. Health & Place, 79:102972. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthplace.2023.102972
Botros, A. A.; Schuetz, N.; Röcke, C.; Weibel, R.; Martin, M.; Müri, R. M.; & Nef, T. (2022). Eigenbehaviour as an indicator of cognitive abilities. Sensors, 22(7):2769. https://doi.org/10.3390/s22072769
Allahbakhshi, H., Röcke, C., & Weibel, R. (2021). Assessing the transferability of physical activity type detection models: Influence of age group Is underappreciated. Frontiers in Physiology, 12:738939. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2021.738939
Fillekes, M. P., Röcke, C., Katana, M., & Weibel, R. (2019). Self-reported versus GPS-derived indicators of daily mobility in healthy aging research: Findings from the MOASIS Project. Social Science & Medicine, 220, 193-202. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2018.11.010