Which Age Friendly Environments are promoting wellbeing in the elderly?

This report by Dr Lynne Douglas, former Bield CEO in Scotland and a Winston Churchill Travelling Fellow, captures the learning from travels she undertook to New Zealand, Australia, Japan, and Hong Kong to explore environments that are enabling wellbeing in the older population.

The key insights from her travels include:

New Zealand

• It has recently gone back to a more target-driven siloed approach due to political changes and what they have lost from their previous multicultural integrated model is very interesting.
• It has excellent strategies in place to target those most in need. Their Homelessness and Housing Stress approach is sophisticated and routed in community based collaborative approaches across agencies to manage the most vulnerable.

Australia

• It has a strong and proactive approach to physical and social wellbeing in the elderly and the community exercise parks and classes run by peer-to-peer volunteers is an excellent example of how promoting physical wellbeing and social connection can improve outcomes for elderly

Japan

• It offered so many valuable insights as they have in many places with severe depopulation and communities that are already greater than 50% over 65. They demonstrated at a policy level that community integrated models funded by government are the key to assisting a super ageing society to live independently and improve healthy living years.
• The message in Japan is simple, eat well, stay physically active and stay socially connected and there is strong compliance amongst the population to follow these simple rules.
• The use of public health data in Japan to target those most vulnerable was a key insight especially as we are a country that is data rich but information poor and I question, do we really make the most of the data we hold across our public sector to improve outcomes for our populations?

Hong Kong

• It has the oldest mean age for their population on the planet. Despite, cramped conditions, and high population density the older people have social connection and good access to healthcare. The focus on design brief for age friendly environments was a valuable insight and their preventative model is multi-disciplinary and aspiring to a biopsychosocial model.

The reports 5 overarching recommendations are:

1. Reappraise nationally when our preventative long game will begin from a policy and funding perspective.
2. Consider the simple message of Eat Well, Stay Physically active, and Socially Connected in how we convey to our population how to age well.
3. Utilise better the use of population health data within local communities to maximise impact and address the real issues reducing healthy life years in our population.
4. The physical design brief for the development of age friendly housing should be mandated in all new builds across the United Kingdom.
5. A greater undertaking to participate in the WHO Age Friendly city programmes is something I plan to pursue because of this experience.