Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

It is well known that our population is rapidly aging, with many Canadian seniors aging in their own homes or communities. Age-friendly programs are a Global Health Delivery System approach that support communities in becoming more accessible to, and inclusive of, their aging population. Age-friendly programs benefit seniors' health, but are frequently unsustainable: several years in, they have often become defunct. Few studies have examined the implementation processes that contribute to sustainable age-friendly programming. This research elicited the perspectives of 15 age-friendly community leaders in Atlantic Canada, Quebec, and Ontario. Qualitative findings indicated that sustainability is typically inhibited by a lack of community and financial capacity, specifically (1) an overreliance on volunteers - often seniors themselves - paired with (2) a lack of long-term funding. Rural and remote communities experienced these barriers more keenly, struggling with transportation challenges, limited services and personnel, adverse weather and road conditions, a spread-out population, overburdened volunteers, and more limited budgets. When local municipalities were partners in and supportive of group operations, these barriers were substantially minimized. It is recommended that initiatives (1) develop partnerships with local businesses, organizations, professionals, and private citizens to reduce the burden on individual leaders and entrench healthy aging into the fabric of communities, and (2) actively partner with municipalities, seeking to become a recognized component of the municipal plan, thereby reducing seed funding dependence and instead becoming embedded in the municipality's future planning. By improving the health delivery system of age-friendly programming, these recommendations may increase the likelihood that Canadian communities are better able to support seniors' health and healthy aging.