Age-friendly cities: Lessons from London (keynote)

Background Since the World Health Organisation's report on Age Friendly Cities in 20071 interest has grown in initiatives across the world. Objective Our objective for London was to update the research undertaken for the WHO by Simon Biggs and Anthea Tinker2 on how Age Friendly London was in 2005 and to consider other initiatives to enable the Greater London Authority to improve policies. This presentation considers what lessons there are from this evaluation. Method Published material was used, including reports from many sources, data from London surveys and a snowballing technique to sample older people's views on what could be done better. Results & Discussion The findings about London show that although good progress has been made in some areas, there remains a good deal to do to meet the overall objectives set by the WHO. The original policy areas of housing, the outdoor built environment, transport, opportunities for social participation and active contributions to society, employment and incomes, health and community services and provisions for communication and information and infrastructure were revisited. From the original 47 countries in the 2007 initiative few have kept in touch with the WHO. While some new countries and cities that have joined a WHO Global Network and promising initiatives have been identified hardly any have been evaluated3. Conclusion The concept of 'Age Friendly Cities' is expanding to embrace the concept of communities. At the same time the emphasis is more on the participation of older people rather than on services and infrastructure.