How Can the Lived Environment Support Healthy Ageing? A Spatial Indicators Framework for the Assessment of Age-Friendly Communities

Melanie Davern, Rachel Winterton, Kathleen Brasher and Geoff Woolcock
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Melanie Davern: Healthy Liveable Cities Group, Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC 3000, Australia
Rachel Winterton: John Richards Centre for Rural Ageing Research, La Trobe Rural Health School, La Trobe University, Bendigo, VIC 3550, Australia
Kathleen Brasher: Age-Friendly Northeast Victoria, Central Hume Primary Care Partnership, Benalla, VIC 3672, Australia
Geoff Woolcock: Institute for Resilient Regions, University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, QLD 4350, Australia

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 20, 1-20

Abstract: The Age-Friendly Cities and Communities Guide was released by the World Health Organization over a decade ago with the aim of creating environments that support healthy ageing. The comprehensive framework includes the domains of outdoor spaces and buildings, transportation, housing, social participation, respect and inclusion, civic participation and employment, communication and information, and community and health services. A major critique of the age-friendly community movement has argued for a more clearly defined scope of actions, the need to measure or quantify results and increase the connections to policy and funding levers. This paper provides a quantifiable spatial indicators framework to assess local lived environments according to each Age-Friendly Cities and Communities (AFC) domain. The selection of these AFC spatial indicators can be applied within local neighbourhoods, census tracts, suburbs, municipalities, or cities with minimal resource requirements other than applied spatial analysis, which addresses past critiques of the Age-Friendly Community movement. The framework has great potential for applications within local, national, and international policy and planning contexts in the future.

Keywords: age-friendly; health; indicators; planning; tools; spatial; neighbourhoods (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

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