Emerging Models of Age-Friendly Communities: A Framework for Understanding Inclusion

Abstract

The rise of the age-friendly community (AFC) movement is a response to the challenges of global aging. As a matter of economic policy, the aging of world’s population has heightened concerns about the rising public costs of long-term care and led governments globally to promote programs which prevent or delay institutionalization and allow older adults to continue to live in the community. As a matter of social policy, it is by now well-established that mid- and life-late adults want to grow old in their own homes and, if that is not possible, at least in the same communities (AARP, 2010). ... Of equal import, world-wide urbanization is affecting the...