Livable Communities – Assessment

Conducting an Assessment

Areas of Intervention to Create Livable Communities – Early on, it is necessary to conduct a regional or local assessment to:

• Identify areas for policy and programmatic intervention, and
• Determine if additional data collection is needed to understand a given community’s facilitators and barriers to aging in place.

Resources

Some tools to conduct an initial community assessment are listed below. Many provide low-cost methods for local governments to begin examining the needs of their aging population. Which assessment tools are best applied in which settings is discussed in a recently published community assessment guide.

• Shaping Livable Communities and Promoting Aging in Place
• Vital Communities Assessment
• AARP Survey of Community Residents Ages 50 and Older
• Sustainable Communities Indicators
• Is This is a Good Place to Live? Measuring Community Quality of Life for All Ages
• World Health Organization Checklist of Essential Features of Age-friendly Cities
• World Health Organization’s Measuring the Age-Friendliness of Cities: A Guide to Using Core Indicators
• Community Report Card (City Leaders Institute)
• Best Cities for Successful Aging: Indicators in Methodology
• Livable Community Indicators for Sustainable Aging in Place
• The Advantage Initiative
• Urban Health Equity Assessment Response Tool