Age Inclusiveness
Center for Healthy Aging Research
What does it mean to be age inclusive or age friendly?
Communities, spaces, and systems should be welcoming and supportive for people of all ages, particularly older adults. Environments should allow people to live safely, independently, and actively, and to contribute to their communities.
Age inclusiveness emphasizes the importance of creating a society that values and supports people of all ages, ensuring they can thrive throughout their lives.
It is particularly important to adopt age inclusive and age friendly practices as the proportion of adults over age 65 increases in the United States and globally. By 2040, the United States will have about as many people 60-85 years old as there are people 0-20 years old.
Age friendliness also means countering ageism: stereotypes (how we think), prejudice (how we feel), and discrimination (how we act) towards others or oneself based on age (World Health Organization).
Ageism has been called “one of the last socially acceptable prejudices”. It has negative effects on society and on each of us as people who, with any luck, will become the person about whom we might have stereotypes, are prejudiced, and discriminate.
The Age Friendly Ecosystem
The Age Friendly Ecosystem includes cities, health systems, public health, employers, and universities who apply age friendly principles to benefit older adults in all settings.
10 principles elevate age friendliness
In the university setting, 10 principles elevate age friendliness:
Core activities
Encourage the participation of older adults in all the core activities of the University, including educational and research programs.
Personal and career development
Promote personal and career development in the second half of life and to support those who wish to pursue second careers.
Educational needs
Recognize the range of educational needs of older adults (from those who were early school-leavers through to those who wish to pursue Masters or PhD qualifications).
Intergenerational learning
Promote intergenerational learning in order to facilitate the reciprocal sharing of expertise between learners of all ages.
Online education
Widen access to online educational opportunities for older adults to ensure a diversity of routes to participation.
Research agenda
Ensure that the university’s research agenda is informed by the needs of an aging society and to promote public discourse on how higher education can better respond to the varied interests and needs of older adults.
Longevity dividend
Increase the understanding of students of the longevity dividend and the increasing complexity and richness that aging brings to our society.
Health, wellness, arts and culture
Enhance access for older adults to the university’s range of health and wellness programs and its arts and cultural activities.
OSU's retired community
Engage actively with the university’s own retired community.
Regular dialogue
Ensure regular dialogue with organizations representing the interests of the aging population.
A case for age friendliness in the Oregon State University College of Health
Resources
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More information about the Age Inclusive Inventory and Campus Climate Survey for higher education
