Age-Friendly Community Initiatives in Northern New Jersey: Four Years into Grant Funding
This report explores what the inaugural members of the North Jersey Alliance of Age-Friendly Communities look like four years into their development. The report provides an overview of the people, groups, organizations, and resources that support the initiatives’ work toward making their communities better places for long lives. These findings can help guide policy and practice to support the age-friendly movement as it takes hold and expands in New Jersey and beyond.
RUTGERS UNIVERSITY – SCHOOL OF SOCIAL WORK – 2021
The Roles of Age-Friendly Community Initiatives in Northern New Jersey During the COVID-19 Pandemic
When the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated in the United States in March 2020, age-friendly community initiatives (AFCIs) in northern New Jersey pivoted their activities in response to numerous health and social needs in their communities. This report presents ways in which AFCIs contributed to increased capacity in their communities during the global pandemic through four roles: creator, amplifier, good community partner, and communications broker.
RUTGERS UNIVERSITY – SCHOOL OF SOCIAL WORK – 2021
Creating Great Places to Age in New Jersey
Land use is a critical factor in a town’s livability, and especially for older residents. Including aging-friendly factors in local planning like affordable and diverse housing, transportation, walkability, flexible employment opportunities, and access to daily activities and socialization helps towns ensure that older residents can continue to live and thrive independently in the communities they know and love. New Jersey Future has been helping towns proactively design their built environments to accommodate the needs of an aging population.
NEW JERSEY FUTURE – 2020
The Best of Both Worlds: A Closer Look at Creating Spaces that Connect Young and Old
To shed light on factors inhibiting the creation of shared sites in the United States, this report interviews staff and board members of intergenerational shared sites, real estate developers and national policy and program experts. This report identified four key phases in the development and operation of shared sites, and explores these phases and shares lessons learned from intergenerational shared sites around the country.
GENERATIONS UNITED/EISNER FOUNDATION – 2019
Universal Design in Landscape Architecture
Universal landscape planning and design ensures people with disabilities can better participate in public life. These principles, which build off The Center for Universal Design’s principles, should guide the planning and design of all public spaces, regardless of intended audience.
AMERICAN SOCIETY OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS – 2019
Silver to Gold: the Business of Aging
A report from the Summit on Business and the Future of Aging, for the Milken Institute. “Businesses have a golden opportunity to tap into the longevity economy through technology and other solutions, ranging from new ways to communicate to financial management strategies, to health and day-to-day living products and services. Each generation will design its own path through the longevity economy. We all need to recognize that when aging is viewed as a win, we all win.”
P. IRVING, R. BEAMISH, A. BURSTEIN/MILKEN INSTITUTE CENTER FOR THE FUTURE OF AGING – 2018
Age-Friendly Initiatives in the Early Implementation Phase
This report provides an overview of nine age-friendly initiatives in northern New Jersey during the early implementation phase. The report describes the initiatives’ activities and outputs across six domains; addresses the evolution of their leadership teams and community partners; and presents the concept of “gaining traction” to conceptualize their progress.
EMILY A. GREENFIELD/RUTGERS UNIVERSITY – 2018
Universal Design in Parks
Early in 2016, Kansas City Communities for All Ages identified two cities that were preparing to plan for the improvement of public park space. The city of Blue Springs, Missouri, was in the initial phases of working with a private developer whose project would alter access to a public park. The city of Roeland Park, Kansas, had a park on a former school site that residents wanted to see improved. Both cities were open to learning how UD could be incorporated in these projects to enhance access to the parks so residents with mobility challenges could fully engage in activities.
MID-AMERICA REGIONAL COUNCIL – 2016
Age-Friendly Community Initiatives
This report is an overview of the initial development of nine age-friendly community initiatives in northern New Jersey. Based on interviews with initiative leaders, the report identifies two inter-related goals of the early planning phase: better understanding aging in the community and greater engagement of local stakeholders around aging. The report describes key activities in working toward these goals, as well as the role of diverse people and organizations in the early planning phase.
EMILY A. GREENFIELD/RUTGERS UNIVERSITY – 2016
The Case for Age-Friendly Communities
The movement toward age-friendly communities is growing, with the key impetus being population aging. In the U.S. in 1900, 4.1 percent of the population was 65 or older. In 2015, this figure was 14.5 percent. By 2020, it is expected to increase to 16.1 percent, and by 2050, to 20 percent—one in five Americans.
MARGARET B. NEAL, ALAN DELATORRE / GRANTMAKERS IN AGING – 2016
Age-Friendly Communities: Go Big or Go Home
This overview, produced for the Gerontological Society of America Public Policy Aging Report assesses the early success of the age-friendly community movement, and looks to identify trends, new directions and raise caution about the scope of the movement as well as the basic assumptions that frame current efforts in terms of long-term goals and sustainability.
KATHRYN LAWLER/PUBLIC POLICY AGING REPORT – 2015
America’s Health Rankings – Senior Report
This third edition of United Health Foundation’s report demonstrates that determinants of health directly influence health outcomes, accounting for three-quarters and outcomes accounting for one-quarter of each state’s overall score and ranking. Four categories are included in the model of health: Behaviors, Community & Environment, Policy, and Clinical Care.
UNITED HEALTH FOUNDATION – 2015
New Jersey Longevity Economy
The Longevity Economy is the sum of all economic activity in New Jersey that is supported by the consumer spending of households headed by someone age 50 or older—both in New Jersey, as well as spending on exports from New Jersey to other states and DC. This includes the direct, indirect (supply chain), and induced economic effects of this spending. People over 50 contribute to the economy in a positive, outsize proportion to their share of the population.
OXFORD ECONOMICS/ AARP – 2015
AARP Network of AgeFriendly Communities
The AARP Network of AgeFriendly Communities is an affiliate of the World Health Organization’s AgeFriendly Cities and Communities Program, an international effort launched in 2006 to help cities prepare for rapid population aging and the parallel trend of urbanization. The program has participating communities in more than 20 nations, as well as 10 affiliates representing more than 1,000 communities.
AARP – 2014
Aging and the National Prevention Strategy
Aging and public health organizations share many related goals, but have not traditionally worked closely together. In the context of today’s growing aging population and shrinking public resources, it is more important than ever to identify ways to leverage and align efforts across these two disciplines.
PHILADELPHIA CORPORATION FOR AGING – 2014
Pfizer Foundation Grant to GIA to Support “Age-Friendly” Communities
Grantmakers In Aging (GIA), a national association of funders, and the Pfizer Foundation today announced a third year of funding for the Community AGEnda Initiative to help American communities become more age-friendly, meaning great places to grow up and grow old.
PFIZER FOUNDATION – 2014
Atlanta Regional Commission’s Lifelong Communities Initiative: Creating Communities for All Ages and Abilities
The Atlanta region is experiencing a monumental demographic shift. By 2030, one out of every five residents will be over the age of 60. The region’s housing and transportation infrastructure is not ready to support the changing needs and preferences of a growing older adult population. Getting healthy and staying healthy is increasingly difficult in communities with limited access to basic health services and too few opportunities for walking, exercise, good nutrition, and recreation.
LAURA KEYES, CATHIE BERGER / ATLANTA REGIONAL COMMISSION – 2013
Creating a Livable Community
This guide has been created to provide guidance for those at the local level – community leaders, residents, students and more — to identify new ways to address community challenges, implement programs that enhance lives across all generations and create a livable and positive environment for community members.
GENERATIONS UNITED / METLIFE MATURE MARKET INSTITUTE – 2013
Creating the Healthy Community
This report contains best practices from a range of conventional institutions that have expanded their activities to help improve health and wellness in their community. Each example listed emphasizes at least one of the following constituencies: distressed communities, at-risk youth, and the vulnerable elderly population.
PARTNERS FOR LIVABLE COMMUNITIES – 2013
Creating Aging-Friendly Communities
“Sierra Health Foundation joined the Helen Andrus Benedict Foundation, MetLife Foundation and The California Endowment in support of the Creating Aging-Friendly Communities online conference, presented by University of California, Berkeley’s
Center for the Advanced Study of Aging Services in February and March 2008. This conference series was designed to support individuals and organizations nationwide in their planning to make communities more aging-friendly.”
COLLEGE OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, SACRAMENTO / SIERRA HEALTH FOUNDATION – 2008
Guiding Principles for the Sustainability of Age-Friendly Community Efforts
Grantmakers In Aging brought together national and international leaders in the age-friendly movement to explore a variety of issues related to the concept and to its sustainability. The framework presented here is an key outcome of GIA’s Community AGEnda initiative to increase age-friendly activities in selected U.S. regions.
GRANTMAKERS IN AGING/PFIZER FOUNDATION – 2015
GenPhilly: A Strategy for Improving the Sustainability of Aging in Community Initiatives
The GenPhilly model was developed in Philadelphia, PA, to inspire and engage emerging leaders to promote and sustain an aging-in-community agenda. Peer-led, GenPhilly encouraged young professionals to capitalize on cultural and career opportunities, while considering the type of community in which they want to get older.
KATE CLARK/JOURNAL OF AGING & SOCIAL POLICY – 2013
Livable Community Indicators for Sustainable Aging in Place
This report defines a livable community indicator system for measuring a community’s strengths for enabling residents to age in place. The report looks at housing and transportation, walkable and safe neighborhoods, and emergency preparedness and health care, as well as access to shopping, healthy food, and opportunities to participate in community life. The report includes a methodology and recommendations for assessment.
STANFORD LONGEVITY CENTER/MATURE MARKET INSTITUTE – 2013
Selected Highlights from Our Local Partners
In 2012, Grantmakers In Aging (GIA) launched Community AGEnda to help American communities become great places to grow up and grow old. With funding from the Pfizer Foundation, GIA made grants to five community organizations to help accelerate their age-friendly efforts. Here are some of the highlights from the first year of work by Community AGEnda’s local partners.
COMMUNITY AGENDA / GRANTMAKERS IN AGING – 2012
