Theories of Community Collaboration to Advance Age-Friendly Community Change

Abstract

The age-friendly communities movement has grown rapidly in global prominence over the past two 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 three theories—Asset-Based Community Development, Strategic Doing TM, 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.

Active and healthy ageing in urban environments: laying the groundwork for solution-building through citizen science

“…These themes, which covered elements of personal, environmental, socio-cultural, economic and policy domains present in urban environments, are supported by participatory research into age-friendly environments ( van Hoof et al , 2019 ; King et al , 2020 ), demonstrating relevance for promoting active and healthy ageing. The agreed barrier and facilitator themes amongst each discussion group and between older adults and stakeholders suggest a shared framing of local urban spaces and concerns in Birmingham ( Greenfield et al , 2021 ). This presents a promising public and private response to urban spaces that are aligned, which is crucial for sustainable age-friendly initiatives ( Scharlach, 2012 ; Xiang et al , 2020 ).…”

“…For example, older adults shared ideas for addressing unaffordable venue hire, whilst stakeholders provided suggestions for bringing their organizations together to make local initiatives stronger. The connection and generation of ideas and solutions indicate that CSS can effectively form the foundations of community-building ( Freitag and Pfeffer, 2013 ; Greenfield et al , 2021 ), develop future interplay between stakeholders ( Albert, 2021 ; Campos, Monteiro and Carvalho, 2021 ), and facilitate a supportive online environment in which collaboration and knowledge coalition are achieved ( Steels, 2015 ; Thomas et al , 2021 ). Enabling connections, common actions and social cohesion can have indirect positive health impacts ( Popay et al , 2020 ) and effectively contribute towards addressing social challenges present in urban spaces ( Soleri et al , 2016 ; Thomas et al , 2021 ).…”

Developing Indicators of Age-Friendliness in Taiwanese Communities through a Modified Delphi Method

“…The existing literature and government documents in Taiwan about existing age-friendly city indicators were also reviewed [ 6 , 22 , 24 , 25 ]. Greenfield et al [ 26 ] introduced 3 theories to explain community collaboration in age-friendliness: asset-based community development, strategic action, and collective impact. All these theories emphasize mobilizing and collaborating with communities.…”

Age-Friendly Cities and Communities: Research to Strengthen Policy and Practice

“…Furthermore, the aspirations of the AFCC movement are ambitious, encompassing a comprehensive set of aspects of community life spanning physical, social, and service environments. Progress across and within domains is, in many ways, outside the control of any one systems level, organization, sector, or discipline (Greenfield et al, 2022). While this scope is a defining strength of the AFCC movement, it also presents significant challenges for organizing and tracking work across complex systems, as well as demonstrating impact.…”