Age-friendly environments in Europe (AFEE)

The Age-friendly environments in Europe (AFEE) project is an important contribution of the European Commission and the WHO Regional Office for Europe to step up work with cities and communities towards policies for age-friendly environments in Europe.

Vision and objectives

The project’s vision is a Europe where age-friendly cities and communities enable people of all ages to realize their full potential of health in a sustainable and equitable way. The overarching aim of the AFEE project is to increase opportunities for older people in their local environments by creating tools that will allow local and regional authorities to take strong commitments to become more age-friendly and to measure their progress towards this objective.

Latest scientific evidence, the experiences of the European Healthy Cities network and of the WHO global network of age-friendly cities and communities (GNAFCC) as well the ongoing work of the European innovation partnership on active and healthy ageing (EIP on AHA) will inform an updated Guide on creating age-friendly environments that is adapted to the European context.

Goals

To provide guidance and tools for local policy makers to help identify local priority areas of action, design action plans and evaluate age-friendly policies.
To identify and synthesize evidence from good local practices and research to better understand complex pathways between community action and healthy ageing.
To empower networks of cities and communities to provide guidance on developing, implementing and monitoring action for age-friendly cities.

Background

The role of age-friendly and supportive environments

Physical and social environments are key determinants of healthy ageing and independent living in the community. Many decisions on access to good quality health and social care for older people are made at local and regional level. Local governments therefore play a crucial role in supporting and enabling people to lead active and healthy lives.

A priority in Europe

Creating supportive environments for health and well-being and reducing health inequalities are at the core of the WHO Health 2020 European policy framework and strategy for the 21st century and of the WHO Strategy and action plan for healthy ageing in Europe, 2012-2020. The European Commission has made it an objective of the Social Investment Package to improve the conditions for active ageing. Age-friendly environments are one of the priority actions of the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing. This innovation partnership was launched in 2010 by the European Commission as part of the Europe 2020 Flagship Initiative Innovation Union.

Modules of a Guide for age-friendly environments in Europe

Under the AFEE project three project modules are developed:

1. European guide for age-friendly environments

This project module revisits the WHO global age-friendly city guide, and the latest evidence on selected areas of the eight dimensions established by the global guide, enhanced by additional specific guidance on how to implement policies for age-friendly environments in a European context.

2. Tools for monitoring and evaluation

A module on monitoring and evaluation will bring together lessons learnt from progress in individual cities and from a number of international efforts, including from the WHO city networks, and EIP-AHA monitoring framework.

3. Templates for municipal action plans on age-friendly environments

This module will provide guidance on how to design an action plan on city and regional level, linking and integrating relevant EU and WHO recommendations and experiences. Good practice on how to make local level commitment to healthy ageing policies will be synthesised.