Theories of Community Collaboration to Advance Age-Friendly Community Change

Emily A Greenfield, Kathy Black, Patricia Oh, Althea Pestine-Stevens

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

The age-friendly communities movement has grown rapidly in global prominence over the past 2 decades. However, theories to guide multisectoral action toward age-friendly community change have been slower to develop. We demonstrate the value of drawing on theories of community collaboration to inform age-friendly community efforts across engagement, planning, implementation, and measurement. We introduce 3 theories—Asset-Based Community Development, Strategic Doing, and Collective Impact—each with principles and strategies for guiding multisectoral group processes toward long-term and systematic community change. While distinct from each other, these theories collectively suggest the importance of incorporating a more explicit community-building approach within the age-friendly communities movement. We describe the implications of this integrative theory development for bolstering sustainable and comprehensive practices and policies to improve environments for aging across diverse communities.

Original languageAmerican English
JournalThe Gerontologist
Volume62
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 1 2022

Keywords

  • Age in place
  • Community development
  • Evaluation
  • Healthy aging
  • Public policy

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