Community engAGEment for age-friendly environments

People across the U.S. and Oregon are aging, which may burden the current individual, family, and community resources. Accessibility, availability, and affordability of place-based resources affects the ability of residents, as they grow older, to continue to live and thrive in their local community. engAGE in Community is a community-campus partnership with a goal to establish Clackamas County as an age-friendly place where adults can age actively and successfully in their residence and community of choice. The purpose of this community-based participatory action research (CPAR) project was to partner with local people within local communities to identify attributes of the physical, social, and service environments, defined according to the World Health Organization‘s model of age-friendly communities, that support or hinder the ability of all residents to age in place. For this study we applied a CPAR model and MAPPS (Mapping Attributes using Participatory Photographic Surveys) technology with an initial focus on identifying environmental attributes across rural communities (n=5) related to age-friendly topic areas as experienced by local residents (n=238). Our approach focused on involving local residents and stakeholders to build capacity for action, followed by participatory processes involving photography, GIS mapping, photo elucidation, consensus building, and data-driven planning to facilitate community change. Thematic results of the CPAR, emergent community supports or barriers to place-based aging, will be discussed relative to differences between telephone survey data measuring County residents' (n=397) perceptions and importance of community resources that support healthy, active aging and community livability.