There exist multiple measures of what constitutes an ‘age-friendly’ community, organization, or system. One of the most well-known is the WHO Age-Friendly Initiative.
For this assignment, you will complete the Age-Friendly Community Checklist for a community (broadly defined as neighborhood, city, or town) of your choice. After completing the assessment, you will select one domain in which the community could improve. Applying what you have learned in the course, you will develop a proposal that addresses the deficits in that domain.
NOTE: If you wish to use another measure, such as Age-Friendly Health System, Age-Friendly Public Health Department, or Age-Friendly University, please discuss it with your instructor.
Introduction: What is the paper about? Who are the major players? What is the issue? Keep your descriiption of the case study and issue to one paragraph.
Background on the Community: Provide background information on the selected community. What is the aging population like? What about the overall population? Discuss socio-demographic features.
Domain Selected: Identify why you selected this domain above others? What do we know about how this domain influences the health of our aging populations? What exactly makes this an issue or problem? What policy, program, legal, social, economic, family, or other factor makes this matter? You should define the issue/problem and why it matters here. What are the challenges?
Potential Solution: In this section, you should lay out a possible solution –you should identify the pros and cons. You should identify why this is a reasonable solution – how are they justified by policy, laws, and other case studies of communities addressing these challenges. Who benefits from each solution? How does this solution support existing programs, policies, or regulations? Who is most likely to benefit from this solution? Who is most likely to be harmed from this solution?
Implementations: How will you implement the recommended solution? What push-back do you foresee? What support will you need? What other community groups should you work with? What resources or support? Where will they come from?
Outcome: What will be the outcome of the suggested solution? How do we know this will happen? What do the research and literature say? What replicability does this have for other communities?
