Healthy Ageing and Climate Change, 2023-2024

Woolrych, Ryan (2025). Healthy Ageing and Climate Change, 2023-2024. [Data Collection]. Colchester, Essex: UK Data Service. 10.5255/UKDA-SN-857645

Age friendly cities and communities (AFCCs) encourage active ageing by optimising opportunities for health, participation, and security to enhance quality of life in old age. They can provide the resources, amenities and services to support healthy ageing-in-place, enabling older people to age well at home and in their communities. However, climate change related extreme weather events (e.g., flooding, heatwaves and storms) pose new challenges for the health and wellbeing of older people. Little research has explored how such extreme weather events will impact healthy ageing-in-place and AFCCs. There is an urgent need to deliver place-based supports that harness the contribution older people can make to climate action while reducing vulnerability, and building climate resilience through individual, social and community level interventions.

The project will seek to answer the research question: How can we build inclusive climate resilient age-friendly cities and communities (AFCCs) in the UK? The project objectives are to: (i) identify the barriers, challenges and opportunities to build inclusive AFCCs that are resilient to climate impacts and mobilises older people in climate action; (ii) co-design actionable solutions with older adults, policy makers and practitioners, and businesses and entrepreneurs to support healthy ageing across AFCCs; (iii) enhance capacity of key stakeholder groups (e.g., older people groups, community groups, policymakers, statutory and civic organisations and academia) to support climate-ready AFCCs.

Data description (abstract)

Through a community-based participatory approach, this project identified the barriers and opportunities to inclusive climate resilient AFCCs in consultation with older people, policymakers and practitioners, businesses, social enterprises and entrepreneurs. We co-designed solutions with these key stakeholder groups to achieve ‘actionable’ interventions that support healthy ageing for older people in response to the climate crisis.

Qualitative datasets were collected across the study including a stakeholder event and dialogue workshops with older people. The findings identified a range of key findings for how we can support ageing in place in the context of a changing climate which were distilled into a recommendations document.

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