Examining Social Participation of Older Adults to Help Create an Age Friendly Community

In 2010, London was the first Canadian city included in the World Health Organization’s Global Network of Age Friendly Cities. In 2011, the City of London established the Age Friendly London (AFL) Task Force and created an Action Plan (AP) to improve the eight age friendly (AF) domains: Social Participation (SP), Respect and Social Inclusion, Outdoor Spaces and Buildings, Communication and Information, Community Support and Health Services, Civic Participation and Employment, Housing, and Transportation. One of the AP goals was to build a community centre in the Argyle district of London. The purpose of this project was to determine the needs for programs and services that would facilitate social participation of older adults in the community. A sequential explanatory mixed methods design was used, where findings from a baseline AF survey informed five questions asked in consecutive focus groups. Frequencies and domain score means were calculated, and inductive content analysis was used to analyze qualitative data. Survey results showed that Argyle SP domain had the second lowest score of 2.6/5. From focus group discussions’ four distinct and one overarching themes emerged. Findings provided a holistic understanding of the community resources required to satisfy social participation needs of older adults. They also informed the potential to improve Age Friendliness of the community through multipurpose community centres