Developing An Age-Friendly Metropolitan City: A Emerging Case Study from Chicago with Implications for Policy and Practice

In the coming decades, the global population will urbanize and age at high rates. Today, half of the world’s populations lives in cities. Developing urban environments’ responsive to the aspirations and needs of older people is a major concern for social and public health policy. We  present methodology and findings from a baseline assessment of the City of Chicago’s age-friendliness conducted over the last two years.  Utilizing the World Health Organization’s Age-Friendly Model, the assessment aimed to identify constraints and opportunities for older people living in the urban environment and to create a baseline measure for policy and practice. Delivered in partnership with the City’s Department for Family and Support Services the baseline method comprised focus groups with older adults using senior centers, an environmental scan of global age-friendly indicators,  q-sort interviews with key stakeholders working with older adults and a community wide survey amongst those aged 60 plus.  Findings are being fed forward to researchers, service providers, City of Chicago departments and sister agencies, to inform policy development which will sustain Chicago as an age-friendly city. The age-friendly model and analysis of its adaptation for use in a neighborhood metropolitan setting will be shared, together with emergent implications for policy and practice. Findings to date suggest that aging policy debate does not naturally occur across departments and agencies and that a life course perspective may be needed to sustain quality of life.  Furthermore, there is a need to consider the design of urban environments in supporting healthy aging in cities.