You will have seen us talking and writing about age-friendly communities a lot over the years. Progress on achieving an age-friendly Queensland has been a key priority for COTA Queensland for over a decade. We have been working with businesses, local and state Government, community organisations, and people of all ages to make Queensland a more inclusive place to live.
For those who are less familiar with the concept, the Age-friendly Communities initiative is an international movement, led by the World Health Organization (WHO), to create cities and communities where people of all ages can actively participate and live the lives they value. An age-friendly community is one that is designed for diverse people, without barriers, supportive of all capacities. It is a community that is cohesive and inclusive, where people are valued and respected.
This means we need to look at the ways that the built environment and outdoor spaces, housing, transport, health and community support services are designed, and the policies, services, and systems that promote opportunities and participation. The goal is that people have what they need to live the lives that are important to them, maximize their health and wellbeing, and actively participate in their communities even at the oldest ages. But age-friendly communities are not just about people over some arbitrary age – they are about all of us creating communities that are great places to live, grow, and age.
We can only create age-friendly communities if we look at all the areas of policy and services that affect how people live, and make sure they reinforce each other in a positive way. For example, an age-friendly health system must be complemented by transport systems that facilitate access to health services as well as other aspects of the community with impacts on health and wellbeing including employment, housing, and social connectedness. As part of this, it is important that Governments take a leadership role in addressing ageism that may be embedded in their policies and programs.
We need statewide commitment to change through a whole-of-government, age-friendly framework that requires all policies and programs to consider their impact on inclusion across domains. That is why we are calling for the Queensland Government to adopt an All Ages in All Policies approach, which places over all Government policy a lens of age-inclusion and fairness and includes a diverse, multigenerational advisory panel.
