TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2014//
TI  - Assessing communities' age-friendliness: how congruent are subjective versus objective assessments?
JO  - Journal of applied gerontology
A1  - Menec, Verena H.
A1  - Newall, Nancy E. G.
A1  - Nowicki, Scott
SP  - 549
EP  - 565
VL  - 35
IS  - 5
N2  - 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>
LA  - en
SN  - 0733-4648
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0733464814542612
ID  - ref1
ER  -