Oral

How and where we live, eat, work, play, and socialize profoundly influence our physical and mental health. This session will mainly cover the following important topics related to this issue: models for healthy aging, motional disorders and support among elders in an African-American community, a formative assessment of healthy aging in the villages community, assessing organizational capacity building as a strategy to prepare senior-serving organizations for the Silver Tsunami, as well as community engAGEment for age-friendly environments.

Session Objectives: 1. Identify health related domains within The Villages community that promote healthy aging. 2. Explain the community attributes that influence rural people‘s experience of their local physical, social, and service environments as either supporting or hindering place-based aging. 3. Describe prevalence of emotional disorders among elders in an inner-city African-American community. 4. Formulate key strategies in creating an infrastructure that engages an older adult community and integrates academic partners. 5. Describe the Colorado Trust’s Health Aging Initiative focused on building organizational capacity in senior serving organizations 6. Describe a new technology for community engagement around issues of health and place.