The World Health Organization's impacts on age‐friendly policymaking

A case study on Australia

Bibliographic Data

ID11229347
AuthorsEnquing Liu (0000-0003-2839-0875, Healthy Urban Environments Collaboratory Ingham Institute for Applied Medical Research Liverpool New South Wales Australia, corresponding author), Mariana T Atkins (Centre for Social Impact University of Western Australia Crawley Western Australia Australia), Mariana Atkins (0000-0002-9585-6711, The University of Western Australia), Rafal Chomik (0000-0003-2468-3355, The ARC Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research, UNSW Sydney New South Wales Australia), Bruce Judd (0000-0001-9556-7736, City Futures Research Centre Faculty of Arts, Design and Architecture, UNSW Sydney New South Wales Australia)
Year2023
Volume58
Issue3
Pages714-728
Publication date2023-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAustralian Journal of Social Issues (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0157-6321 • E-ISSN: 1839-4655
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1002/ajs4.240
OpenAlexW4306849655
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited22

This paper reflects on whether and how the World Health Organization (WHO) inspires age‐friendly policymaking across different levels of government. This is done via a case study in which we analyse the policies of Australia's three‐tiered federated government system against the WHO's eight core age‐friendly cities domains. Findings suggest that membership of the Global Network of Age‐Friendly Cities and Communities did not appear to overtly inspire the development of age‐friendly policies across Australian governments. Content analysis shows there is an overwhelming policy focus on care and support services, with little attention to cultural diversity. This reflects an outdated portrayal of debilitation in later life and a lack of recognition of how diverse circumstances impact the ageing process and corresponding support needs. Our findings also reveal the challenges of a three‐tiered federated system, where varying financial and authoritative capacities have influenced how different governments acknowledge and respond to population ageing. Notably, local governments—the main level of implementation targeted by the WHO—are invariably constrained in developing their own age‐friendly policies and may opt to adopt those of higher levels of government instead. These challenges will likely impact other resource‐limited governments in responding to the needs of their emerging ageing populations

Business · Diversity (politics · Economic growth · Economics · Government (linguistics · Political science · Population · Population ageing · Project commissioning · Public relations · Publishing · Resource (disambiguation · Sociology · Health disparities and outcomes · Intergenerational Family Dynamics and Caregiving · Migration, Aging, and Tourism Studies

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