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JC Age-friendly City Project - p5_knowledge-transfer_kt_sub01
Age-friendly Community and the Decade of Healthy Ageing
Age-friendly Port - AFC Online Resource Platform
To facilitate the long term sustainability of AFC synergy, an online resource platform “Age-friendly Port” has been developed by the Institute under the JCAFC Project. It covers contents on different topics, including district profiles, good practices in Hong Kong and worldwide, and research findings, and provides useful resources of all kinds for the elderly, members of the community and different stakeholders to spur collaboration and advancement in building Hong Kong into an age-friendly city to cater for the needs of all ages.
Click here to visit Age-friendly Port: https://www.jcafc-port.hk/
JC Age-friendly City Project - p5_knowledge-transfer
Age-friendly Community and the Decade of Healthy Ageing
Knowledge transfer
Other than research and evaluation, the Institute also took up an important role to transfer the AFC knowledge to the community and raise public awareness on age-friendly issues. The specific works of knowledge transfer include establishing an online resource platform “Age-friendly Port” under the JCAFC Project, providing training to older people and equip them with knowledge and skills on promoting AFC, sharing the findings of age-friendly assessments to districts stakeholders (e.g. attending the meetings of District Councils), as well as organizing public education activities to raise public knowledge and awareness on age-friendly issues (e.g. press conference, public forums).
The Institute also participates in the ‘Age-friendly Environments Knowledge and Action Hubs’ (AFE K&A Hub) developed by the World Health Organisation to bridge this gap between making and using knowledge on healthy ageing. It joins the AFE K&A Hub on urban and territorial planning to examine its role to make cities and communities more age-friendly. For more details please visit WHO’s website at here.
JC Age-friendly City Project - p4_assessment
Age-friendly Community and the Decade of Healthy Ageing
Age-friendliness Assessment
Introduction
In tandem with the vision to make Hong Kong an age-friendly city, the Institute has parcitpated in the Jockey Club Age-friendly City Project since 2015, which is led by the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust in partnership with Hong Kong's four gerontology research institutes to develop a common framework to measure the age-friendliness of 18 districts of Hong Kong and identify areas of improvement.
The Institute was responsible for conducting baseline assessment and final assessment on the level of age-friendliness in five local districts, namely Kwai Tsing, North, Sai Kung, Sha Tin and Tai Po. Based on the framework of eight domains of an Age-friendly City (AFC) set out by WHO, the studies aimed to reach out to community members across diverse socio-demographic backgrounds and understanding their views through both quantitative (questionnaire survey) and qualitative (focus group interview) approaches.
The baseline assessment report and final assessment report were compiled for each district to highlight the current situations of age-friendliness in the community, and identify strengths and weaknesses for each AFC domain. Relevant recommendations were made to guide the District Councils and community stakeholders to develop a three year action plan in creating age-friendly community.
Based on the final assessment findings on age-friendliness, the Institute further developed four thematic reports to provide detailed exploration on the case of Hong Kong regarding four domains of an age-friendly city, namely Outdoor spaces and buildings, Transportation, Communication and information, as well as Community support and health services. Each report highlights the current situations of age-friendliness of the domain and its age-friendly policies and measures in Hong Kong, and proposes recommendations to the Government and other relevant parties in implementing age-friendly initiatives.
Research Report on Age-friendliness Assessment
Thematic reports on age-friendly city domains
JC Age-friendly City Project - p3_qol_index
Age-friendly Community and the Decade of Healthy Ageing
Hong Kong Elder Quality of Life Index (HKEQOL)
Introduction
To prepare for the continued ageing of the population in Hong Kong, there is a pressing need to assess the well-being of local older people to assist in formulating effective policies to address this socio-demographic change in Hong Kong. The Chinese University of Hong Kong Jockey Club Institute of Ageing, in collaboration with the Centre for Quality of Life, with funding support from The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust, has been developing the Hong Kong Elder Quality of Life Index (HKEQOL), incorporating the AgeWatch Index, to assess the elderly well-being in a comprehensive manner with locally significant indicators annually since 2014 for six consecutive years.
Indicators of the HKEQOL Index
The HKEQOL Index includes tailor-made indicators to Hong Kong in relation to the Age-friendly City concept proposed by the World Health Organization (WHO) and takes reference to the Global AgeWatch Index, using 22 indicators under 4 domains. The features of the new index are:
- Based on the four domains (i.e. income security, health status, capability and enabling environment) in the Global AgeWatch Index to assess major aspects of well-being in older people.
- Indicators are added to expand the coverage of assessment of well-being in older people.
- Indicators are designed according to suggestions in Measuring the Age-friendliness of Cities: A Guide to Using Core Indicators published by the World Health Organization in 2015 in assessing age-friendliness of Hong Kong.
Significance of the HKEQOL Index
The HKEQQL Index enables the trend analysis of the social and economic well-being of older people annually, identification of locally important determinants of well-being among Hong Kong older adults, as well as monitoring and evaluating local age-friendly initiatives.
At the beginning, this Index put a spotlight on domains where Hong Kong lags far behind other countries concerning its ageing population, in terms of income security, as well as psychological health (ranking 79 out of 97), although it ranked first in physical health, by virtue of its longest life expectancy in the world (CUHK Jockey Club Institute of Ageing, 2014). The use of this indicator was compared with other indicators of societal adaptations to ageing well (Woo, 2020b). Cultural adaptation was found to be relevant, particularly between Eastern and Western cultures. Soon after, the WHO promoted a set of indicators specifically for monitoring the age-friendliness of cities, which we incorporated into the constructs for the Age Watch index, to form the new HKEQOL Index (CUHK Jockey Club Institute of Ageing, 2016).
This index was then used to monitor the progress of the territory-wide AFC project. Although positive changes were initially observed, the impact of the 2019 social unrest in Hong Kong, followed by the COVID-19 pandemic, overshadowed these improvements (Woo, Leung, Yu, Lee, & Wong, 2021). The documentation of the trend in HKEQOL shows that while it may be used as a macro indicator that is able to reflect policies affecting the well-being of older people, it is also able to reflect the impact of societal unrest and pandemics, and that the latter may override the effect of existing ageing policies.
Research Reports on Index Results
A total of six Index reports and four topical reports were produced under the research on HKEQOL. The report findings can serve as a useful reference on policy planning of age-friendly interventions for improving the quality of life of elderly people in Hong Kong.
Index reports on HKEQOL