Assessing a Communityʼs Elder Friendliness

The graying of our population has created a need for elder-friendly communities, but this concept has not been consistently defined nor applied in community assessments. Studies of the topic have examined a range of phenomena--physical environments, religious communities, and access to services--in an attempt to develop a comprehensive model for community assessment. This article describes an elder-friendly community model developed by The AdvantAge Initiative, discusses how it was used to identify assets and areas for improvement in one Western Washington community and how this assessment is informing strategies to improve older adults' quality of life.