Thinking Globally, Acting Locally: Generating Elder Friendly Urban Environments

An interdisciplinary effort at the University of Pennsylvania was launched in 2004, to assess the needs of older adults residing in the communities adjacent to UPenn. This forum of faculty, students and administrators from social work, nursing, design, urban planning, law, medicine, government and community-based organizations began an integrated effort to understand how to build elder-friendly urban environments to support aging-in-place. This process utilized a range of methods to understand community challenges and opportunities including focus groups, surveys, spatial, and secondary analysis. Spatial modeling is a particularly helpful method to integrate different types of data to emphasize the role of place and its impact on the quality of older adults' lives. The role of spatial modeling in enhancing our understanding of this community will be discussed. Critical findings include: a majority of neighborhoods have older, long-term residents; those with physical disabilities are concentrated in areas with older homes; most are impoverished; and 70% have mortgages that are 35% of their income. Critical community strengths/opportunities identified included: resilient indigenous leaders, strong sense of connection to the community, successful examples of community-based collaboration, high degree of home ownership (83%), and university/community organization resources. Weaknesses/challenges included: very old housing stock in need of repair (60%), many areas with residents age 85 and older, many residents with disabilities (70%), and high poverty rates (30%). Critical areas for future community participatory research and action were identified and will be discussed along with application of this approach to urban settings around the globe.