More Seniors = More Need For Help

With the number of older adults worldwide projected to increase significantly over the next decade, state and local governments as well as international organizations are examining how communities can support their older residents as they age.

A new local effort led by DataHaven and partners from 14 other cities, on behalf of the World Health Organization (WHO), is helping to advance the issue.

According to state population projections made by the University of Connecticut, the share of older adults — defined by WHO as people 60 years and over — is expected to grow by 44 percent statewide and by 33 percent in New Haven from 2013 to 2025.

Nationally, about nine in 10 adults prefer to ​“age in place,” or stay in their homes and communities as they grow older. Given the growing population of older residents, local and state governments will need to adopt ​“age-inclusive” policies that help people maintain healthy and happy lifestyles regardless of their age or ability.

Rooted in the Past

The national aging trend is rooted in the baby boomer generation, born in the period 1946 to 1964. Baby boomer Americans represented a spike in the nation’s birth rate in the aftermath of World War II — by 1964 boomers were almost 40 percent of the nation’s population. As the baby boomers transition from middle to old age, they remain a significant percentage of the population, causing a nationwide shift toward older age: in 1970, the median age was 28.1 years, compared to 37.3 years in 2013.

Baby boomers are not only the largest generation of older people in the nation’s history, they are also living longer than any generation before them. And life expectancies at birth continue to increase. According to the Center for Disease Control, national life expectancies in 2010 were 76.2 years for men and 81.0 years for women. In contrast, the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition reports that life expectancy in 1950 was 66.0 years for men and 71.7 years for women.

National Trend, Local Pattern

DataHaven mapped how the population of older adults has changed in Connecticut, by decade from 1980 to 2013. The maps show changes by Census Tract, based on a database that adjusts for frequent changes in the boundaries of these small geographic areas over time, and help illustrate the widespread growth in the number of older adults relative to total population.

For example, the map below shows the percent of population age 75 and over – a group that grew from 144,689 people in 1980 to 250,862 in 2013 (a 73 percent increase):

An examination of percentage changes of older adults per Census Tract, from 1980 to 2013, demonstrates that the populations of older adults have grown most quickly in suburban neighborhoods — in Fairfield County, the outer suburbs of New Haven and Hartford, and much of New London County. This trend will accelerate as baby boomers continue to age.

Contrastingly, many urban areas experienced negative population growth of older adults, indicating that the number of older adults in these areas has declined.

DataHaven maps also show changes to the population of children and younger adults between 1980 and 2013. For instance, from 1980 to 2013, while the state’s total population rose by 478,401 (a 15% increase), the population of adults age 20 to 44 declined by 3,732 (a 0.3% decline). However, some urban neighborhoods saw large increases in their populations of younger people – revealing an important trend for Connecticut’s workforce. In particular, the urban neighborhoods of Greater New Haven experienced extensive growth of younger adults, ages 20 to 44 years, from 1980 to 2013:

Access DataHaven’s interactive maps showing the population of older adults in Connecticut in 1980, 1990, 2000, and 2013 (65 years and older or 75 years and older) and demonstrating population change in Connecticut by age group, from 1980 to 2013.

How Is New Haven Doing?

In the past decade, the World Health Organization (WHO) — the United Nations agency that promotes global public health — has taken action to address similar patterns of aging in countries around the world.

WHO has collaborated with organizations and researchers worldwide to define characteristics of age-inclusivity and to advise communities, such as New Haven, on how to provide for their growing older populations. This work has culminated in Measuring the Age-friendliness of Cities: A Guide to Using Core Indicators, which suggests a method that local communities may use to evaluate their age-inclusivity. In 2014, WHO invited DataHaven — and representatives from 14 other cities around the world — to test out the draft guide.

Mary Buchanan and Mark Abraham of DataHaven, with support from Connecticut’s Legislative Commission on Aging, Connecticut Council for Philanthropy, and Connecticut Community Foundation, conducted the study on behalf of WHO. The report used data from 1,300 respondents to DataHaven’s 2012 Community Wellbeing Survey and other sources to measure indicators suggested by WHO related to the physical, social, and economic environment. Expanding upon the research prepared for WHO, the Community Wellbeing Survey has been substantially expanded this year to include a sample of over 16,000 adults, which will now allow DataHaven and its over 100 partner organizations working on the survey to evaluate the age-inclusive livability of every community in the state.

The report drew promising conclusions about age inclusivity in the Greater New Haven region. It found that the streets, transportation, and public spaces of the region are generally accessible to older adults. However, the physical environment is much less accessible to suburban residents than it is to residents of the city — in particular, features such as sidewalks and public transportation. Abraham noted that a revised edition of the WHO indicator guide should include access to private cars as an additional measure of transportation access, given the pattern of development in suburban and rural areas. However, it still would be important to consider that many adults, even in the United States, are unable to afford or use them. In 2012, DataHaven found that among the many tens of thousands of adults in Greater New Haven who reported that they not have regular access to a vehicle, at least 10,000 also felt that they could not rely on public transit.

Civic participation is prevalent among older residents of the Greater New Haven region, with more than 90 percent registered to vote. Residents are less engaged in the community in other ways — fewer than half of older adults volunteered in the past year, and only a third often attended cultural events — but rates of participation in these activities are similar to those of younger age groups. Overall, the vast majority — 83 percent — of older respondents reported being satisfied with where they lived.

However, the report identified disparities between high and low-income older adults in areas of well-being and community engagement. For example, 37 percent of low-income respondents (those with annual household income less than $30,000) assessed their own health as poor or fair, compared to 16 percent of all other older adults. While low-income older adults were as likely to register to vote as other older adults, they were less likely to engage in other aspects of community life. Just over 20 percent of low-income older adults often participated in cultural activities, compared to over 40 percent of all other older adults.

Economic instability may be a contributing factor to the relatively poorer health and lower civic engagement of low-income older adults — more than half of those surveyed said that they were just getting by or finding it difficult to manage financially. Inability to pay could prevent older adults from accessing transportation, receiving quality medical care, or spending time and money on leisure activities. Further, the stress caused by financial instability could directly impact health.

Statewide Approach to Aging

DataHaven’s research partner — Connecticut’s Legislative Commission on Aging — is a nonpartisan research body committed to promoting policies that benefit an older generation. However, Alyssa Norwood, the Commission’s project manager, said that the body is devoted to creating livable communities for all age groups.

“We really embrace this idea of a lifespan approach,” she said. ​“Research shows that there’s a lot of similarity in lifestyle preferences across [all ages].”

The Commission assesses community livability in two areas: physical environment and social environment. The physical environment encompasses transportation, housing, public spaces and buildings, and planning and zoning, while the social environment concerns community engagement as well as health and social services.

Norwood said that, while Connecticut must make further progress, the state has already seen success in pursuing livable, age-inclusive communities.

For example, statewide and local investments in bus and rail systems, bike and pedestrian pathways, and planning principles focused on dense, community-driven development should create physical environments that are more accessible for those with limited individual mobility.

“Universal, age-inclusive design benefits Greater New Haven by making our towns more comfortable places to live, and the services they provide easier to understand and access,” Abraham said.

Abraham added that community design should be evaluated by various types of residents to understand its complete impact.

“One of my favorite examples is a crosswalk,” he said. ​“A simple painted crosswalk across several lanes of traffic could be appropriate for able-bodied adults, but it is perceived differently by children, adults with strollers, or people with physical limitations to their mobility.”

International Ideas

In early June, WHO hosted the 15 pilot cities at its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland to share their experiences during the pilot process. The results will inform WHO’s synthesis of the various pilot site reports which in turn will form the basis for finalizing the indicator guide. 

According to Abraham, who presented information about inequality and well-being among older adults in Connecticut, the discussion at the WHO meeting focused on the rigor, standardization, and potential adaptability of age-friendly community indicators across a wide variety of global contexts, as well as the sustainability of the process itself. Some consistent themes emerged. For example, pilot sites in Iran, China, Spain, and Argentina each stressed how access to local-level data on issues like transit access and sidewalk quality empower local residents of all ages to advocate for changes that would improve their neighborhoods.

Abraham was impressed by a quality of life issue raised by Fishguard and Goodwick, Wales — one of the pilot sites. The city mentioned the need to connect younger and older adults in order to improve perceptions of safety within the community. A program in Fishguard and Goodwick sought integration by ensuring that younger adults were represented within workshops on age-inclusive community design.

Connecting generations is important to consider for future planning in Greater New Haven as well, Abraham said.

New Delhi, India, another pilot site, also highlighted community integration, focusing on the role of government officials and media organizations in educating members of the public across generations on issues of aging. 

Dr. Megumi Kano and Paul Rosenberg, Officers for Urban Health at WHO, also underscored community-wide ownership of age-inclusive indicators as a strategy for designing livable cities.

“The community should be engaged at the outset in developing the vision for the project,” Kano said. ​“They should be empowered to engage with decisions about how indicator data should be collected, validated, shared and used to improve age-inclusiveness in the community.”

Such an approach, Kano and Rosenberg said, ensures the sustainability of age-inclusive policies in the face of changing local leadership.

Erica Pandey is a summer fellow at DataHaven, a formal partner of the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership with a 25-year history of public service to Greater New Haven and Connecticut. DataHaven’s mission is to improve quality of life by compiling, sharing and interpreting public data for effective decision making.

The population change analyses depicted in the maps are based on information from the Neighborhood Change Database (NCDB) 2010 created by GeoLytics and the Urban Institute with support from the Rockefeller Foundation, 2012. The maps were created by Mary Buchanan, Project Manager at DataHaven.