Proximity Services Research Articles

Fostering humanization in academic libraries

The role of libraries in contributing to the humanisation of higher education, through proximity services, is discussed; and a user satisfaction study carried out on the subject in the libraries of the Faculty of Psychology and the Institute of Education of the University of Lisbon (Portugal) is presented. A survey was applied to 100 users of a higher education library in Portugal, over 3 years (including the COVID-19 years). Having selected the parameters involved in the humanization of services, the results, measured on a Likert scale from 1 (dissatisfied) to 4 (very satisfied), reveal improvements in user satisfaction with the quality of the collections, the personalized reference services, and the training & support offered. Challenges identified include adapting information resources to users' needs, promoting community inclusion, ensuring equitable and quality care, and providing training in advanced research skills. Higher education libraries play a fundamental role in higher education humanization, providing proximity services that contribute to developing students' autonomy and confidence. The positive satisfaction indicators suggest that humanization in higher education can be successfully achieved with the contribution of these services.

Regional variation in health care substitution for intrauterine device insertion: a retrospective cohort study

BackgroundRising health care costs are a major concern in most Western countries. The substitution of healthcare stands as a strategic approach aimed at mitigating costs while offering medical services in proximity to patients’ residences. An illustrative instance involves the migration of outpatient hospital care to primary care settings. Notably, the insertion of intrauterine devices (IUDs) can be safely executed within primary care contexts. In order to establish a pragmatic objective for the rate of IUD substitution, we conducted an evaluation of regional disparities in healthcare substitution pertaining to the insertion of intrauterine devices. Furthermore, we investigated disparities in the follow-up ultrasound and reinsertion of IUDs between primary and secondary healthcare environments.MethodsAll women who underwent IUD insertion in Dutch primary care (by general practitioners and midwives) and secondary care (by hospital physicians) between January 1, 2016, and December 31, 2020 were included. The main outcome measures were the case-mix adjusted IUD insertion rates at the regional level by care setting and the proportions requiring follow-up ultrasound and IUD reinsertion within three months.ResultsOf the 840,766 IUD placements, 74% were inserted in primary care and 26% in secondary care. The proportion inserted in primary care increased from 70% in 2016 to 77% in 2020. The observed substitution rate ranged from 58 to 82% between regions. Compared with health care professionals in primary care, those in secondary care performed more ultrasounds to verify IUD placement (23% vs. 3%; p-value < 0.01) and more IUD reinsertions within three months (6% vs. 2%; p-value < 0.01).ConclusionsIUDs are increasingly being inserted in Dutch primary care, with peak regional IUD insertion care substitution rates at ≥ 80%. IUD insertion care substitution to primary care appears to be associated with significantly fewer women having follow-up ultrasound or IUD reinsertion within three months.

Review of Edge Computing for the Internet of Things (EC-IoT): Techniques, Challenges and Future Directions

The volume of edge data has reached ZB level, placing enormous strain on the core network bandwidth due to the rapid development of contemporary technology and the quick expansion of the number of smart devices accessing wireless networks under IoT. On the other hand, numerous new applications, such as autonomous vehicles, location recognition, augmented and virtual reality, etc., have proposed stricter standards for network latency, jitter, data security, etc. Edge computing (EC) emerged as a response to the shortcomings of traditional cloud computing in these areas. Edge computing is a new computing paradigm that performs computation at the network’s edge and can meet the critical needs of various industries undergoing digital transformation thanks to its ability to provide intelligent interconnection services in close proximity to the edge. It follows in the footsteps of previous computing paradigms such as distributed computing, grid computing, and cloud computing. This article presents a thorough analysis of current findings and accomplishments in the field of edge computing, as well as a prediction of potential directions for its future growth.

Guidelines to promote sustainable transport in higher education universities: a bibliometric and systematic review

PurposeUnplanned urban mobility causes negative effects on the population and the environment. This study aims to understand how higher education institutions (HEIs) are managing the transportation issues related to their activities and how they are implementing actions towards more sustainable practices in this regard.Design/methodology/approachA systematic review and bibliometric analysis were performed using the Proknow-C method, and the bibliographic portfolio was evaluated to answer guiding questions about distribution of articles over the years and around the world, the most relevant and frequent topics, the travel behavior of university life and the main methodologies used. The meta-analysis was modeled using a programming language in R to execute Bibliometrix package.FindingsSharing systems, active transport, public transport, urban planning, car parking management and travel behavior are the most relevant topics related to sustainable mobility in HEIs. Different strategies to reduce car use are adopted, and the geographic location of the university and the availability of housing and shopping services in close proximity directly influence travel patterns. As a result, seven guidelines and strategic actions associated were proposed to promote the engagement of institutions in the development of sustainable transport and guide future studies about new solutions to promote sustainable university commutes.Originality/valueThis paper presents a new perspective by performing a critical literature review based on the experiences reported by several isolated studies on the subject. Initiatives of sustainable transport guidelines can be used by academics, urban planners, higher education administrators and other stakeholders to make universities more environmentally friendly, inclusive and accessible.

Distributed Computation Offloading and Power Control for UAV-Enabled Internet of Medical Things

The advancement of the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) has led to the emergence of various health and emotion care services, e.g., health monitoring. To cater to increasing computational requirements of IoMT services, Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) has emerged as an indispensable technology in smart health. Benefiting from the cost-effectiveness of deployment, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) equipped with MEC servers in Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access (NOMA) have emerged as a promising solution for providing smart health services in proximity to medical devices (MDs). However, the escalating number of MDs and the limited availability of communication resources of UAVs give rise to a significant increase in transmission latency. Moreover, due to the limited communication range of UAVs, the geographically-distributed MDs lead to workload imbalance of UAVs, which deteriorates the service response delay. To this end, this paper proposes a UAV-enabled Distributed computation Offloading and Power control method with Multi-Agent, named DOPMA, for NOMA-based IoMT environment. Specifically, this paper introduces computation and transmission queue models to analyze the dynamic characteristics of task execution latency and energy consumption. Moreover, a credit assignment scheme-based reward function is designed considering both system-level rewards and rewards tailored to each MD, and an improved multi-agent deep deterministic policy gradient algorithm is developed to derive offloading and power control decisions independently. Extensive simulations demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms existing schemes, achieving \(7.1\% \) reduction in energy consumption and \(16\% \) decrease in average delay.

Enabling Device-to-Device network with proximity service for porter-passengers in railway stations

This paper presents an innovative device-to-device (D2D) network adapted to optimize the rail experience for both passengers and carriers. The meaning of the proposed system is a smart wearable device specially designed for wearers. This device serves two purposes, enabling fair dynamic pricing based on baggage weight and length of trip, and facilitating health monitoring by continuously checking vital signs such as heart rate and pulse. In case of an emergency, the device is equipped to send timely notifications to both the passenger mobile application and the railway service. For passengers, the D2D network offers a variety of proximity services that enhance their rail experience by providing real-time location information to various facilities such as taxis, hotels, restaurants and internet hubs. An integrated application has been developed to further enhance the passenger experience. This app helps with porter booking, fare estimation, taxi booking and hotel search, contributing to a smooth travel experience. The portable portable prototype is built on state-of-the-art technology that includes modules such as ESP32 and pulse sensors for connectivity, monitoring and pricing. Rigorous tests have demonstrated the feasibility of a D2D network in implementing key functions such as concierge health monitoring, location-aware passenger services, and fair pricing mechanisms. While the results show promising progress, there are recognized areas that need further refinement. These include improving the accuracy of remote monitoring, optimizing health monitoring algorithms and strengthening network security measures. This paper presents a robust D2D network architecture that benefits both carriers and passengers at train stations. Addressing certain pain points and using technological innovations. The proposed system shows its potential to significantly improve the overall railway experience.

Reorganisation of the paediatric care network in Italy

In this paper we advocate for an urgent restructuring of the paediatric care network, emphasizing timely and comprehensive treatment for children. Key points include harmonising the upper age limit to 18, integrating hospital and territorial paediatric care, and utilising telemedicine. The importance of community-based prevention, proximity services, and the establishment of Community Houses with multi-professional teams is stressed. Additionally, there's a call for political will and resources to upgrade paediatric hospital networks and create integrated care pathways, ensuring consistent and improved care for children nationwide.

P-RAN, a Fog Computing Platform for 5G and 6G Services

With the success of cloud computing, expectations on edge and fog computing have been high. Unfortunately, progress has been below expectations with only limited success in vertical industries due to cost and privacy concerns. New use cases and architectures are needed. As a promising technology, device-to-device (D2D) communication has been in development for years. However, the use of D2D among smartphones is still limited despite the efforts. In this paper, the integration of D2D technology, cellular network, and blockchain is explored to gain a synergy for commercial fog computing that addresses the cost and privacy concerns. Based on the idea of Proximity Radio Access Network (PRAN), China Telecom has launched D2D-based services with a commercial platform to offer a wide range of proximity services. Besides, the blockchain-enabled P-RAN service platform is also being promoted and applied. With the availability of this commercial platform, this paper discusses the possibility of offering fog-computing based services for a possible large-scale commercial realization. Both technical and business aspects are explored to make the case for this proposal. Finally, two use cases are proposed and the numerical analysis is carried out.

Efficient Mobility Management in Mobile Edge Computing Networks: Joint Handover and Service Migration

Mobile edge computing (MEC) has been envisioned as an essential technology for latency-critical applications by providing computing services in close proximity to mobile users. Bringing MEC to come into practice, how to support user mobility remains challenging. In addition to seeking a thorny trade-off between service latency and migration cost, both interactions in space and time exist in mobility management, which requires collaboration among users and perfect prior knowledge, including user mobility and network information. In this paper, we propose an efficient mobility management framework for MEC networks, in which mobility management is operated centered around users’ performance and cost, while radio access and computing service provision are loosely coupled. With a loosely coupled design, the proposed framework exhibits more flexibility and incurs higher complexity. Focusing on multi-user and multi-cell MEC networks, this joint control problem is formulated to maximize the long-term total utility accounting for the service delay and migration cost. Considering the exponential complexity, a distributed mobility management approach is developed, which combines game theory and user-oriented deep reinforcement learning to deal with the interactions in space and time. Simulation results show the efficiency and scalability of the proposed approach.

Digital twin-assisted resource allocation framework based on edge collaboration for vehicular edge computing

Vehicular Edge Computing (VEC) supports latency-sensitive and computation-intensive vehicular applications by providing caching and computing services in vehicle proximity. This reduces congestion and transmission latency. However, VEC faces implementation challenges due to high vehicle mobility and unpredictable network dynamics. These challenges pose difficulties to network resource allocation. Most existing VEC network resource management solutions consider edge–cloud collaboration and ignore collaborative computing between edge nodes. A reasonable collaboration between Roadside Units (RSUs) or small cells eNodeB can improve VEC network performance. Our proposed framework aims to improve VEC network performance by integrating Digital Twin (DT) technology which creates virtual replicas of network nodes to estimate, predict, and evaluate their real-time conditions. A DT is constructed centrally to maintain and simulate VEC network, thus enabling edge nodes collaboration and real-time resources information availability. We employ channel state information (CSI) for RSUs selection, and vehicles communicate with RSUs through a non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) protocol. We aim to maximize the VEC system computation rate and minimize task completion delay by jointly optimizing offloading decisions, subchannel allocation, and RSU association. In view of the resulting optimization problem complexity (NP-hard), we model it as a Markov Decision Process (MDP) and apply Advantage Actor–Critic (A2C) algorithm to solve it. Validated via simulations, our scheme shows superiority to the benchmarks in reducing task completion delay and improving VEC system computation rates.

P-RAN, an Indoor Solution for 5G and 6G in High Frequency Bands

With the progress of 5G commercial deployments worldwide, indoor coverage becomes a new issue because of the use of high frequency bands. While traditional distributed antenna systems (DAS) are available to mitigate the indoor coverage problem, service providers are reluctant to use them due to the required zoning and civil engineering difficulties in addition to the required higher capital expenditure (CAPEX). Device to device (D2D) technique has been proposed since Release 12 of LTE for cellular communications. Unfortunately, the commercial capabilities of D2D using the Side-Link standard have not been available in smartphones due to the lack of needed support from any of the major operators. In this paper, a launch of new services using D2D capabilities of smartphones will be discussed to mitigate the indoor coverage problem. This would mark the first time when one of the world major operators has provided a material support for the capabilities. If this effort can be fruitful, it can be a paradigm shifting approach for the indoor coverage problem and may pave the way for the D2D capabilities to be implemented into smartphones for many possible proximity services in the future.

How railway stations can transform urban mobility and the public realm: The stakeholders’ perspective

Railway stations are massive infrastructures through which people, products, materials, and energy flow every day. They usually gather a multitude of functions and provide a wide range of services to users based on their respective specific features. Thus, railway stations have the potential to play a critical role in reshaping our cities in a sustainable manner by facilitating intermodality, green and active modes of transport and logistics, and by gathering proximity services. In this reshaping process, implementing effective and seamless mobility, as well as the proximity of services, are key challenges. However, no urban transformation process can take place without the involvement and commitment of the respective stakeholders. This paper aims to form an understanding of the views these stakeholders have towards the potential of railway stations transformation, for the broad European context, to carve out first paths towards actually achieving that transformation. This study analyses a wide range of inputs and considerations made during a series of workshops held in 2021 by the EIT Urban Mobility where experts from a wide range of fields exchanged their experiences and ideas around the topics of urban mobility and public realm. In this process, railway stations emerged as a key player to meet the challenges of cities’ sustainable development. After analysing their potential and exploring policy obstacles that are currently hampering such a transformation, this paper suggests a series of recommendations to better exploit railway stations, gained from the stakeholders’ perspective.

Heterogeneous IoT/LTE ProSe virtual infrastructure for disaster situations

Natural disasters of any kind can have catastrophic consequences for properties, infrastructure, and human lives. During large-scale calamities, two common problems are faced: (i) the partial or even complete destruction of communications infrastructure, and (ii) the difficulty of collecting accurate information on the disaster area and trapped victims. These two problems prevent a quick and accurate assessment of damage, leading to inefficient rescue operations and putting the lives of rescuers and victims in great danger. The LTE Proximity Services (ProSe) and the Internet of Things (IoT) are promising technologies that can offer an efficient solution to the aforementioned problems in the form of a rapidly established emergency network for post-disaster management. In this paper, we propose a solution for the establishment of an efficient emergency communications network for post-disaster situations based on the LTE Device-to-Device ProSe (D2D ProSe) technology and IoT devices. It facilitates fast and efficient service discovery that allows querying heterogeneous IoT devices such as health sensors, wireless cameras, smartwatches, or any other relevant devices or sensors. The goal is to allow rescuers to have access to information produced by various things available during the rescue operation. We take advantage of LTE ProSe to create a distributed D2D broadcast backbone that enables efficient and reliable message dissemination while reducing energy consumption and achieving high coverage. We then add a multipath forwarding mechanism, in which each service type of IoT device is ensured an optimal path for its traffic. Unlike previous works, we fully implemented our solution in the NS3 simulator and relied on realistic models (wireless channels, energy, and mobility) to evaluate its performance compared to previous solutions, which we also implemented on NS3. The obtained results show that our solution achieves significant improvement compared to those proposed in the literature. The entire code used in this project is freely available to the community through GitHub.11https://github.com/iorisam/NS3_ED2D_IoT.

Service function chain migration with the long-term budget in dynamic networks

Mobile edge computing emerges as a new paradigm to provide low-latency network services in the close proximity to users. Based on the network function virtualization (NFV) technology, network services can be flexibly provisioned as service function chain (SFC) deployed at edge servers. In some scenarios, such as the vehicular or UAV-assisted edge computing, the network topology varies rapidly due to the mobile edge servers, which changes the routing path between adjacent VNFs in an SFC. Migrating SFC to adapt to the frequent topology change can reduce the SFC latency, and improve the quality of users’ experience. However, frequent SFC migration will unavoidably increase the operation cost. In this paper, to optimize the system performance in a cost-efficient manner, we study the SFC migration problem in dynamic networks with a long-term cost budget constraint. We then propose the Topology-aware Min-latency SFC Migration (TMSM) method to strike a desirable balance between the SFC latency and the migration cost. Specifically, we first apply the Lyapunov optimization to decompose the long-term optimization problem into a series of real-time optimization sub-problems. Since the decomposed problem is still NP-hard, a Markov approximation based heuristic is proposed to seek a near-optimal solution for each sub-problem. Compared with the rerouting-only strategy, which does not migrate any VNF, our TMSM reduces the latency by at least 21% on average in each time slot. Extensive evaluations show that the proposed algorithm achieves a better tradeoff between the SFC latency and migration cost than the baselines.

Application and Research of IoT Architecture for End-Net-Cloud Edge Computing

At the edge of the network close to the source of the data, edge computing deploys computing, storage and other capabilities to provide intelligent services in close proximity and offers low bandwidth consumption, low latency and high security. It satisfies the requirements of transmission bandwidth, real-time and security for Internet of Things (IoT) application scenarios. Based on the IoT architecture, an IoT edge computing (EC-IoT) reference architecture is proposed, which contained three layers: The end edge, the network edge and the cloud edge. Furthermore, the key technologies of the application of artificial intelligence (AI) technology in the EC-IoT reference architecture is analyzed. Platforms for different EC-IoT reference architecture edge locations are classified by comparing IoT edge computing platforms. On the basis of EC-IoT reference architecture, an industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) edge computing solution, an Internet of Vehicles (IoV) edge computing architecture and a reference architecture of the IoT edge gateway-based smart home are proposed. Finally, the trends and challenges of EC-IoT are examined, and the EC-IoT architecture will have very promising applications.

(Re)thinking the city of proximity for Salutogenic purposes

Abstract As centres of population and human activities, nowadays urban environments are simultaneously the main cause of and solution to a growing number of health-related challenges. In this setting, COVID-19 pandemic has helped reiterate this and serves as a wake-up call and an opportunity to rethink the way we approach cities. Aim of this paper is to research what today seems the most promising urban model for long-term individual and global resilience: the “city of proximity”, namely about inclusive walkable and cycling environments where people can access all basic destinations within reasonable times and distances from home. Therefore, urban proximity dimension, methodological approach and urban features and functions become the main subject of a quanti-qualitative matrix of comparison of five international case studies centred on the topic, by which it is possible to set out general criteria for such model, along with a methodology to measure all cities in its respect. As a result, residential density, functional mix, pedestrian surface, cycle routes, public transport stops, green areas, schools, cultural facilities, sport facilities, retail services and urban gardens make up the fix components of a comprehensive set of 11+n urban features, whose occurrence is investigated through GIS-based analysis within designated distance ranges, creating a comprehensive assessment framework that is adjustable to all urban contexts worldwide. In the end, the application of such framework to the city of Milan finally helps to validate its effectiveness in providing a picture of city-wide accessibility to proximity services, and in highlighting the value of integrated analysis in view of shaping public policies and informed planning choices which put health and sustainability at the centre.

Looking Closer at the Patterns of Land Cover in the City of Porto, Portugal, between 1947 and 2019—A Contribution for the Integration of Ecological Data in Spatial Planning

As more people reside in cities and metropolitan areas, urban vegetation assumes an increasingly important role as one the main providers of ecosystem services in close proximity to human agglomerations. To improve the conditions for citizens and to optimise the sustainability of urban areas, the fields of landscape and urban ecology need to address the urgent priority to integrate ecological data in spatial planning, design, and management programs. With the objective to produce “actionable knowledge” for urban planning in the city of Porto (Portugal), we analyse the evolution of land cover since the mid-20th century at a fine spatial scale. Porto has followed the global trends of urbanisation, marked by a general increase in built-up and impervious surfaces that conquered the previously rural surrounding areas. This caused a severe decline in vegetation cover (especially herbaceous), as well as an increase in fragmentation and isolation of the remaining vegetation patches. These outcomes provide a detailed analysis of the city spatial dynamics, generating valuable information that can be relevant for future interventions regarding urban landscape change at a local scale, the most relevant for planning.

Navigating the healthcare system in Nairobi City County: perspectives and experiences in the utilization of oral healthcare by caregivers of children with HIV/AIDS

BackgroundThe healthcare system in any republic can cause inequalities in health outcomes if they do not take into account the needs of deprived populations. Children with HIV/AIDS are known to have a high vulnerability to oral diseases; yet, they continue to face limitations in the utilization of oral healthcare. While other determinants of healthcare utilization may co-exist, possible gaps in the oral healthcare system can collectively affect a vulnerable group disproportionately in the utilization of oral healthcare.ObjectiveTo explore qualitatively, the perspectives, experiences and attributions of a cohort of caregivers of children with HIV/AIDS and their Health Care Providers (HCPs), on the utilization of oral healthcare within the structure of the oral healthcare system in Nairobi City County (NCC).DesignA cross-sectional explorative mixed methods study design of two hundred and twenty one (221) female caregivers of children with HIV/AIDS and their HCPs using a survey, Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) and In-depth Interviews (IDIs). The study setting was the HIV-Care Facilities (HIV-CCFs) at three large hospitals in NCC.ResultsCaregivers mainly utilized independent ‘nearby’ private dental clinics for oral healthcare services, attributing their selection to cheaper user-fees, proximal service location, and recommendations from social networks. Wait time, opening and closing hours, health workers’ attitudes and inferred opportunity costs were perceived as important quality issues in the utilization of oral healthcare.ConclusionThe oral healthcare system in NCC does not support the utilization of oral healthcare within the context of providing comprehensive healthcare for children with HIV/AIDS. Absence of ‘in-house’ oral health services at the HIV- CCFs is viewed as a defining structural barrier.

Convergence of Information-Centric Networks and Edge Intelligence for IoV: Challenges and Future Directions

Recently the Internet of Vehicles (IoV) has become a promising research area in the field of the Internet of Things (IoT), which enables vehicles to communicate and exchange real-time information with each other, as well as with infrastructure, people, and other sensors and actuators through various communication interfaces. The realization of IoV networks faces various communication and networking challenges to meet stringent requirements of low latency, dynamic topology, high data-rate connectivity, resource allocation, multiple access, and QoS. Advances in information-centric networks (ICN), edge computing (EC), and artificial intelligence (AI) will transform and help to realize the Intelligent Internet of Vehicles (IIoV). Information-centric networks have emerged as a paradigm promising to cope with the limitations of the current host-based network architecture (TCP/IP-based networks) by providing mobility support, efficient content distribution, scalability and security based on content names, regardless of their location. Edge computing (EC), on the other hand, is a key paradigm to provide computation, storage and other cloud services in close proximity to where they are requested, thus enabling the support of real-time services. It is promising for computation-intensive applications, such as autonomous and cooperative driving, and to alleviate storage burdens (by caching). AI has recently emerged as a powerful tool to break through obstacles in various research areas including that of intelligent transport systems (ITS). ITS are smart enough to make decisions based on the status of a great variety of inputs. The convergence of ICN and EC with AI empowerment will bring new opportunities while also raising not-yet-explored obstacles to realize Intelligent IoV. In this paper, we discuss the applicability of AI techniques in solving challenging vehicular problems and enhancing the learning capacity of edge devices and ICN networks. A comprehensive review is provided of utilizing intelligence in EC and ICN to address current challenges in their application to IIoV. In particular, we focus on intelligent edge computing and networking, offloading, intelligent mobility-aware caching and forwarding and overall network performance. Furthermore, we discuss potential solutions to the presented issues. Finally, we highlight potential research directions which may illuminate efforts to develop new intelligent IoV applications.

Health care utilisation two years prior to suicide in Sweden: a retrospective explorative study based on medical records

ObjectivePrevious literature has suggested that identifying putative differences in health care seeking patterns before death by suicide depending on age and gender may facilitate more targeted suicide preventive approaches. The aim of this study is to map health care utilisation among individuals in the two years prior to suicide in Sweden in 2015 and to examine possible age and gender differences.MethodsDesign: A retrospective explorative study with a medical record review covering the two years preceding suicide.Setting: All health care units located in 20 of Sweden’s 21 regions.Participants: All individuals residing in participating regions who died by suicide during 2015 (n = 949).ResultsAlmost 74% were in contact with a health care provider during the 3 months prior to suicide, and 60% within 4 weeks. Overall health care utilisation during the last month of life did not differ between age groups. However, a higher proportion of younger individuals (< 65 years) were in contact with psychiatric services, and a higher proportion of older individuals (≥ 65 years) were in contact with primary and specialised somatic health care. The proportion of women with any type of health care contact during the observation period was larger than the corresponding proportion of men, although no gender difference was found among primary and specialised somatic health care users within four weeks and three months respectively prior to suicide.ConclusionCare utilisation before suicide varied by gender and age. Female suicide decedents seem to utilise health care to a larger extent than male decedents in the two years preceding death, except for the non-psychiatric services in closer proximity to death. Older adults seem to predominantly use non-psychiatric services, while younger individuals seek psychiatric services to a larger extent.