Age-friendly environments in Europe: Indicators, monitoring and assessments (2018)

Policies to create more age-friendly environments have become a forceful movement in Europe and globally, in which a growing number of cities and communities, local authorities and regional governments participate. This publication examines the contribution of information systems, indicators, monitoring and assessment to the success and sustainability of age-friendly policy initiatives. It sets out the potential sources for drawing a comprehensive picture of the situation of older people and their quality of life, and considers how to communicate these effectively.

This publication is based on lessons learned from existing age-friendly initiatives in Europe and the various ways in which these are supported by measurement, monitoring and tailored communication tools, such as healthy ageing profiles and community information systems. These include participatory approaches to community evaluation with older people and bottom-up initiatives of gathering and sharing of information that support older people to remain active and engaged in their communities and thus to continue doing the things that are important to them.