Review of Assessment Tools for Baseline and Follow-up Measurement of Age-Friendliness

© 2015, Springer Science+Business Media New York. The World Health Organization (WHO) concept of an Age-Friendly Community (AFC) has emerged as a response to demographic aging and increased urbanization. Although the WHO is in the process of establishing indicators of age-friendliness, currently, no tool has been identified as optimal to measure the age-friendliness of a community on a large scale. The purpose of this scoping review was to identify and examine currently available surveys and questionnaires that can be used to conduct large-scale, quantitative assessments of the age-friendliness in a community. In addition to a literature review, assessment tools were gathered through personal communications. Results indicate that 25 identified assessment tools vary greatly in terms of topics covered, total and number of questions per domain, rigor and availability. We present the strengths and weaknesses of available tools, and determine their suitability for age-friendly assessments. Only one tool, the Community Assessment Survey for Older Adults (CASOA), was sufficiently comprehensive to be considered for modification and use in baseline assessment of the age-friendly features of a community