Assessing Age-Friendly Community Progress: What Have We Learned?

The Global Network of Age-Friendly Cities and Communities has grown steadily over the past decade across the United States. The age-friendly model calls for a 5-year process of continuous improvement across the stages of engagement, planning, action, and measurement, culminating in an evaluation of age-friendly progress. However, surprisingly, little is known regarding American age-friendly communities' accomplishments to date.

We utilized content analysis to assess the progress reported by American age-friendly communities (n = 30) that joined by end of year 2015 using the Age-Friendly Community Evidence-based Tool with expanded program evaluation measures including health equity as defined by the World Health Organization. We employed deductive analytic techniques to assess reported community performance in 11 thematic areas across the range of structures and processes that characterize age-friendly efforts.

We found strong evidence in the areas of leadership and governance, harnessed resources, application of the age-friendly framework, and in multisector collaboration as well as reported provisions. All of the communities reported health equity aims, particularly in promoting accessible physical environments and social inclusion efforts. Our analysis further revealed relatively moderate evidence of older adult involvement and weak performance in the monitoring and reporting of evaluative findings as well as overall summation and dissemination plans.

We conclude by synthesizing the overall performance reported by the age-friendly communities, highlighting both strengths and weaknesses. We also offer suggestions to enhance evaluative efforts and advance the dissemination of age-friendly community progress.