@article{ref1,
title="Assessing communities' age-friendliness: how congruent are subjective versus objective assessments?",
journal="Journal of applied gerontology",
year="2014",
author="Menec, Verena H. and Newall, Nancy E. G. and Nowicki, Scott",
volume="35",
number="5",
pages="549-565",
abstract="The notion of age-friendliness is gaining increasing attention from policy makers and researchers. In this study, we examine the congruence between two types of age-friendly surveys: subjective assessments by community residents versus objective assessments by municipal officials. The study was based on data from 39 mostly rural communities in Manitoba, Canada, in which a municipal official and residents (M = 25 residents per community) completed a survey to assess age-friendly features in a range of domains, such as transportation and housing. Congruence between the two surveys was generally good, although the municipal official survey consistently overestimated communities' age-friendliness, relative to residents' ratings. The findings suggest that a survey completed by municipal officials can provide a reasonable assessment of age-friendliness that may be useful for certain purposes, such as cross-community comparisons. However, some caution is warranted when using only these surveys for community development, as they may not adequately reflect residents' views.<p/> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0733-4648",
doi="10.1177/0733464814542612",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0733464814542612"
}