Characterising older adults’ engagement in age-friendly community initiatives

Perspectives from core group leaders in the Northeast United States of America

Bibliographic Data

ID11201249
AuthorsEmily A Greenfield (0000-0001-5743-457X, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, corresponding author), Laurent Reyes (0000-0002-0064-9227, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey)
Year2022
Volume42
Issue6
Pages1465-1484
Publication date2022-06-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAgeing and Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0144-686X • E-ISSN: 1469-1779
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0144686x2000166x
OpenAlexW3112405406
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited30

Researchers and programme champions alike have identified older adults as key contributors to age-friendly community change efforts. There has been very little scholarship, however, to characterise the nature of older adults’ engagement in age-friendly community initiatives (AFCIs). To help address this gap, we drew on five waves of data from semi-structured interviews with core group members of eight AFCIs in a Northeast region of the United States of America. Interviews were conducted as part of a multi-year, community-engaged study on the development of philanthropically supported AFCIs. We iteratively coded segments of the interviews in which core group members described the involvement of older adults, as well as their efforts to engage older adults in the initiatives. This analysis resulted in an inductive-analytic typology with five qualitatively distinct categories, including older adults as: (a) consumers (receiving information, goods and services through the AFCI), (b) informants (sharing perspectives on ageing in the community with the core group), (c) task assistants (assisting with project-oriented tasks under the direction of the core group), (d) champions (contributing ideas and implementing action on their own initiative), and (e) core group members (holding primary responsibility for driving the work of the AFCI forward). We discuss implications of the typology for research on AFCI implementation and evaluation, as well as opportunities for AFCIs to enhance the engagement of older adults from historically marginalised groups

Core (optical fiber) · Political science · Public relations · Scholarship · Sociology · Typology · Work (physics) · Engineering · Geriatric Care and Nursing Homes · Health disparities and outcomes · Migration, Aging, and Tourism Studies · Psychology

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