WHO consultation on developing indicators for age-friendly cities and communities

Professor Asghar Zaidi was an invited expert for the 2nd WHO consultation on developing indicators for age-friendly cities, held in Quebec City, with contributions being included from his recent work on the active ageing index and the global AgeWatch index.

This consultation is part of a series of consultations, started in 2012, when the first consultation was held in St. Gallen, in which Prof Zaidi also contributed. The consultations are part of the age-friendly cities network of WHO and they are organised by the WHO Centre for Health Development (Kobe, Japan) in an effort to develop new technical guidance on monitoring age-friendliness of cities.

The objective of this consultation was to obtain expert opinion on how to advance the development of an Age-friendly City monitoring framework and core indicator set.

Fourteen international experts and seven WHO officers, representing five of the WHO regions, gathered for this 2nd consultation one-day meeting. The main inputs for discussion were a draft monitoring framework and the preliminary results from a pilot study.

Twenty cities from seven countries had participated in the pilot study which involved an evaluation of 61 indicators considered critical for monitoring age-friendliness of cities through previous consultation with officials and experts.

The indicators were ranked by value scores assigned by local health officials and community representatives participating in the pilot study, and a short list of high-ranking indicators was constructed.

During the meeting, the experts engaged in group work to provide specific feedback on the framework, the short-listed candidates for the core indicators and their proposed definitions.

The outcomes of the meeting suggest possible modifications to the structural and visual aspects of the framework, a narrower set of core indicators, and the development of an assessment tool that would help users apply the framework and core indicators to their own local context. Additional inputs will be sought before finalising these products through further consultations with relevant experts as well as with local health officials and community representatives in Member States.


The full report is now available online from the WHO website. For more information, contact Professor Asghar Zaidi.

Posted 14/11/2013 14:46