Suchergebnisse

Age Friendly Initiatives (AFIs) including the World Health Organization/AARP Age Friendly Communities at the city- and county-levels support aging-in-place efforts. These AFIs represent a promising strategy for U.S. communities to build community resilience to mitigate the effects of climate change. However, few AFIs have wholly incorporated the critical element of emergency or public health preparedness for climate change-related events into their activities. We report the role that local health departments (LHDs) and AFIs play in improving emergency and public health preparedness for older adults, and provide guidance to LHDs for improving their engagement with AFIs. Qualitative analyses of nearly 40 interviews conducted with AFI and LHD staff found AFIs and LHDs perceive the greatest needs of older adults to prepare for climate change-related events to be tailored information sharing, increasing awareness of the need to prepare, developing emergency plans, and communication between older adults with supporting community organizations. Multi-agency structural processes that incentivize engagement from AFI staff can most comprehensively prepare older adults for future climate change-related events. Coordinated services from the AFI and LHD can include city/county alert systems, training for community emergency response teams, provision of emergency preparedness supplies, and delivering educational programs. We report the structural, economic, political, and social barriers and facilitators to engagement between AFIs and LHDs to inform stronger and more efficient alignment to meet the needs of aging adults in the face of climate change. The implications of lessons learned from U.S. communities are applied to other AFIs around the world.