Edmonton’s Aging-Friendly Strategy: The Need for Measurable Outcomes
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2018-09-07
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Abstract
As the global population ages, ensuring cities adopt aging-friendly strategies is becoming a global public health priority. One response has been the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Aging-Friendly strategy which aims to create a framework for municipalities to adopt best practices to their local context. The global strategy has been developed to maintain a flexible approach that allows for local adaptation. Program evaluation – a key component for the successful implementation of municipal level aging strategies – is proving to be a challenge. In an effort to maintain flexibility for jurisdictions around the world, the WHO strategy faces unintended consequences resulting from a multiplicity of interpretations. This paper explores the challenges and best practices of developing locally adapted indicators based on the extensive list of indicators and strategies that have been developed globally. Evaluation is an essential component for aging-friendly initiatives as it allows jurisdictions to have concrete measures of progress and to better allocate resources. Key performance indicators are essential as they measure progress on the main goals of the strategy. However, given the flexible nature of the global age-friendly strategy, it becomes difficult for municipalities to find ideal performance indicators. As a result, municipalities have to overcome the challenge of finding suitable data sources for effective evaluation. This paper aims to provide comparable measures to WHO suggestions for indicators. Through cross-jurisdictional comparisons of global strategies and implementation of best practices at local levels, this capstone highlights the unintended consequences that result from flexible strategies. It uses Edmonton, Alberta as a case study, but draws out indicator selection lessons for other municipalities. Edmonton is an ideal example as the City is currently modifying the existing age-friendly strategy. This new strategy aims to better reflect the changes and needs of the aging population in Edmonton. Diverging from the existing WHO’s recommended strategy creates more challenges for Edmonton as they look for comparable measures. However, this capstone aims to use this case study to recommend data sets and indicators based on best practices established by the WHO and other established age-friendly jurisdictions.
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Chandan, A. (2018). Edmonton’s Aging-Friendly Strategy: The Need for Measurable Outcomes (Unpublished master's project). University of Calgary, Calgary, AB.