Title: Developing age-friendly communities in an emergent post pandemic world
Funder: Dunhill Medical Trust

Abstract: This project will provide new insight into how best to support older people’s social connections as the UK enters the next phase of the Covid-19 pandemic. It will produce an evidence base to inform initiatives to actively support older people to remain connected in place. It will use the City of Salford in Greater Manchester as a case-study. The evidence will advance knowledge and practice of creating and maintaining age-friendly places. The onset of the Covid-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on UK life. Older people in particular are reported to have been disproportionately negatively affected by the disease and restrictions imposed to limit its risks. This includes reduced physical activity and, potentially, heightened isolation. However, we do not yet know the full impact of the pandemic on the ability of older people to remain socially connected to the places where they live, nor understand how Age-Friendly initiatives can facilitate older people’s ongoing engagement and, where necessary, support their re-connection with others. Age-friendly places aim to enable people of all ages to actively participate in the places where they live as well as support older people to live healthy and active later lives. The City of Salford has been delivering an Age-Friendly City since 2014. Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, it was making significant positive impacts to the way the city worked with and valued the voice of older people. In common with other organisations across the UK, following the outbreak of Covid-19, Age-Friendly Salford transferred all but the most essential face-to-face activities to more remote delivery platforms and media. The pandemic in the UK is certainly not over, but there is evidence that attempts are being made to re-establish face-to-face activity and reduce the extent of social distancing and ‘shielding’ that has been the response for much of the last 15-18 months. That said, while there has been some return to face-to-face activity, a blended approach to delivering Age-Friendly initiatives is anticipated for some time to come. The project will address three questions: • How have older people made connections within and around their environments during the pandemic and what can we learn from this as we move out of the pandemic? • What has the impact of Covid-19 been on older people and their living environments; and how can this be accounted for in the development and adaption of new and extant support activities? • How have activities for older people changed and what will this look like as the UK moves through later phases of Covid-19 and beyond? The work will adopt a mixed method approach to evidence gathering and implementation over 24 months. This will include: • Focus groups with up to 40 stakeholders who provide services to older people or are involved in developing policy and practice to support older people. These will gather new insight to providing support and engagement activities. • Interviews with up to 40 older people to gather new insight to experiences of accessing and engaging with remote support and engagement activities. • Training and supporting a team of older people as co-researchers to input to design, undertake data collection, and support dissemination. This group will be supported to undertake a real-time assessment of how age-friendly activity adapts to an emergent post-pandemic world using an age-friendly standards toolkit. The group will also be supported to lead on Conversations about Ageing with stakeholders including service providers, policy makers and other older people. • Creative dissemination co-produced with older people. This includes multi-media reports, conference presentations and policy and practitioner guidance The lived experience and influence of older people is central to this study. Situating this at the centre of the work will enable us to gain knowledge and insight into what works best to ensure older people can shape their own lives. We will work with older people for the duration of the project to ensure that their voices are amplified to better understand how to deliver suitable living environments and communities for an ageing population as the UK moves beyond the Covid-19 pandemic. Beneficiaries of the research include other older people, service providers and policymakers. Our dissemination strategy supports upscaling to other regions.

Lay abstract: This project will provide new insight to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on older people’s social connections and develop evidence-based recommendations on how places can continue to support older people. Across the UK, older people are reported to have been disproportionately negatively affected by the disease and restrictions imposed to limit its risks. This includes reduced physical activity and, potentially, heightened isolation. However, we do not yet know the full impact of the pandemic on how older people can remain socially connected in the places where they live, nor do we understand how age-friendly initiatives can encourage and support older people’s social (re)connections over coming years. The project will address three questions: • How have older people made connections within and around their environments during the pandemic and what can we learn from this as we move out of it? • What has the impact of Covid-19 been on older people and their living environments; and how can the development and adaption of new and existing support activities help age-friendly places to succeed? • How have activities for older people changed and might these continue to adapt post Covid-19? We will work with Age-Friendly Salford to test out how places can continue to be made age-friendly as the UK moves to the next phase of Covid-19. We will do this by collecting and analysing new data gathered using a range of techniques in five phases: • Phase 1: Focus groups with individuals from organisations that support older people or develop policies to support them. • Phase 2: Interviews with older people to gather new insight to experiences of accessing and engaging with remote support and engagement activities. • Phase 3: Completing an audit of age-friendly locations, services and businesses • Phase 4: Engaging in a series of ‘Conversations about Ageing’, led by older people, based on the findings from Phases 1, 2 and 3 • Phase 5: Developing recommendations and informing others of findings Older people will be involved in all stages of the project, from contributing ideas and sharing their experiences to working as co-researchers on the team. They will be supported to undertake an assessment of how age-friendly activities adapt in an emerging post-pandemic UK using an age-friendly standards toolkit. The group will also work with the project team to host a series of 'Conversations about Ageing' with service providers, policy makers and other older people.

Research activity codes: 1.2 PSYCHOLOGICAL AND SOCIOECONOMIC PROCESSES;7.1 INDIVIDUAL CARE NEEDS
Health categories: GENERIC HEALTH RELEVANCE