International Medical Geography Symposium (IMGS) 2024

Being designated an age-friendly city: What does it mean for the health and well-being of older people?

Jul 18, 2024, 5:00 PM

20m

Knowles Conference Center/Second Level-242 - Room 242 (Georgia State University College of Law)

Paper Structural Determinants of Health Paper Presentations

Speaker

Mark Rosenberg (Queen's University)

Description

To be designated an age-friendly city by the World Health Organization (WHO), a specific set of criteria need to be met. Using the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS), the health and well-being of older people who live in a sample of large cities, which have been designated as age-friendly (AFCs) by the WHO are compared to older people who live in a sample of large cities (AFC-Ns), which are not ‘officially’ designated as age-friendly by the WHO. Overall health and mental health are used as dependent variables. In addition to the comparisons between AFCs and AFC-Ns, comparisons are made to provincial and national averages. Technical, theoretical and policy explanations are considered to interpret the results.