Developing Age-Friendly Cities: an Evidence-Based Evaluation Tool

Recent years have seen a proliferation of initiatives aimed at enhancing the age-friendliness of urban settings. The World Health Organization’s (WHO) global Age-Friendly Cities (AFC) programme has been central to these. Cities seeking to become more age-friendly need reliable ways of assessing thei...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of population ageing 2019-06, Vol.12 (2), p.203-223
Main Authors: Buckner, Stefanie, Pope, Daniel, Mattocks, Calum, Lafortune, Louise, Dherani, Mukesh, Bruce, Nigel
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Age
Age differences
Aging
Cities
Decision making
Demography
Evaluation
Evidence-based practice
Fieldwork
Geriatrics/Gerontology
Health initiatives
Kindness
Medicine/Public Health
Social Sciences
Sociology
Urban areas
Urban environments
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Summary:Recent years have seen a proliferation of initiatives aimed at enhancing the age-friendliness of urban settings. The World Health Organization’s (WHO) global Age-Friendly Cities (AFC) programme has been central to these. Cities seeking to become more age-friendly need reliable ways of assessing their efforts. This article describes an evidence-based evaluation tool for age-friendly initiatives whose development was informed by fieldwork in Liverpool/UK. The tool complements existing assessment frameworks, including those provided by WHO, by paying particular attention to the structures and processes underlying age-friendly initiatives. It reflects the complexity of age-friendliness by reconciling a focus on breadth with detail and depth, and it allows for a highly accessible visual presentation of findings. Using selected examples from Liverpool, the article illustrates how the evaluation tool can be applied to guide policy and practice with an age-friendly focus in different urban contexts. Pilot testing in further settings is underway to refine the tool as a practical method for evaluation and for supporting city-level decision making.
ISSN:1874-7884
1874-7876
DOI:10.1007/s12062-017-9206-2