The age-friendly community movement is a global phenomenon, currently growing with the support of the WHO and multiple international and national organizations in the field of aging. Drawing on an extensive collection of international case studies, this volume provides an introduction to the movement. The contributors – both researchers and practitioners – touch on a number of current tensions and issues in the movement and offer a wide-ranging set of recommendations for advancing age-friendly community development. The book concludes with a call for a radical transformation of a medical and lifestyle model of aging into a relational model of health and social/individual wellbeing.

This important book provides a comprehensive survey of different strategies for developing age-friendly communities, and the extent to which older people themselves can be involved in the co-production of age-friendly policies and practices.

The guide is aimed primarily at urban planners, but older citizens can use it to monitor progress towards more age-friendly cities. At its heart is a checklist of age-friendly features. For example, an age-friendly city has sufficient public benches that are well-situated, well-maintained and safe, as well as sufficient public toilets that are clean, secure, accessible by people with disabilities and well-indicated. Other key features of an age-friendly city include: well-maintained and well-lit sidewalks; public buildings that are fully accessible to people with disabilities; city bus drivers who wait until older people are seated before starting off and priority seating on buses; enough reserved parking spots for people with disabilities; housing integrated in the community that accommodates changing needs and abilities as people grow older; friendly, personalized service and information instead of automated answering services; easy-to-read written information in plain language; public and commercial services and stores in neighbourhoods close to where people live, rather than concentrated outside the city; and a civic culture that respects and includes older persons.

The supportive role of urban spaces in active aging is explored on a world scale in this unique resource, using the WHO’s Age-Friendly Cities and Community model. Case studies from the U.S., Canada, Australia, Hong Kong, and elsewhere demonstrate how the model translates to fit diverse social, political, and economic realities across cultures and continents, ways age-friendly programs promote senior empowerment, and how their value can be effectively assessed. Age-friendly criteria for communities are defined and critiqued while extensive empirical data describe challenges as they affect elders globally and how environmental support can help meet them. These chapters offer age-friendly cities as a corrective to the overemphasis on the medical aspects of elders’ lives, and should inspire new research, practice, and public policy. Included in the coverage: A critical review of the WHO Age-Friendly Cities Methodology and its implementation. Seniors’ perspectives on age-friendly communities. The implementation of age-friendly cities in three districts of Argentina. Age-friendly New York City: a case study. Toward an age-friendly European Union. Age-friendliness, childhood, and dementia: toward generationally intelligent environments. With its balance of attention to universal and culture-specific concerns, Age-Friendly Cities and Communities in International Comparison will be of particular interest to sociologists, gerontologists, and policymakers. “Given the rapid adoption of the age-friendly perspective, following its development by the World Health Organization, the critical assessment offered in this volume is especially welcome”. Professor Chris Phillipson, University of Manchester

According to the US Census Bureau, the US population aged 65+ years is expected to nearly double over the next 30 years, from 43.1 million in 2012 to an estimated 83.7 million in 2050. These demographic advances, however extraordinary, have left our health systems behind as they struggle to reliably provide evidence-based practice to every older adult at every care interaction. Age-Friendly Health Systems is an initiative of The John A. Hartford Foundation and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), in partnership with the American Hospital Association (AHA) and the Catholic Health Association of the United States (CHA), designed Age-Friendly Health Systems to meet this challenge head on. Age-Friendly Health Systems aim to: Follow an essential set of evidence-based practices; Cause no harm; and Align with What Matters to the older adult and their family caregivers.

Creating Aging-Friendly Communities (CAFC) examines the need to redesign America's communities to respond to the realities of our rapidly aging society. The text focuses on the interface between individuals and their environments, and the ways in which communities can enhance individual and community well-being. What differentiates CAFC from other books is its breadth of focus, its comprehensive and evidence-based consideration of key concepts, its inclusion of social as well as physical infrastructure characteristics, and its intensive examination of models of community change for fostering aging-friendliness. It presents a conceptually and empirically-based model of aging-friendliness, identifies environmental modifications that could enhance individual and community well-being, outlines a typology of community change approaches, and considers the potential efficacy of those approaches. This book identifies practical implications for policies, programs, and knowledge development designed to help communities become more aging-friendly.

As the drive towards creating age-friendly cities grows, this important book provides a comprehensive survey of theories and policies aimed at improving the quality of life of older people living in urban areas. In this book, part of the Ageing in a Global Context series, leading international researchers critically assess the problems and the potential of designing age-friendly environments. The book considers the different ways in which cities are responding to population ageing, the different strategies for developing age-friendly communities, and the extent to which older people themselves can be involved in the co-production of age-friendly policies and practices. The book includes a manifesto for the age-friendly movement, focused around tackling social inequality and promoting community empowerment.