title: Healthy naturally occurring retirement communities: a low-cost approach to facilitating healthy aging.
abstract: Naturally occurring retirement communities (NORCs) are broadly defined as communities where individuals either remain or move when they retire. Using the determinants of health model as a base, we hypothesize that some environmental determinants have a different impact on people at different ages. Health benefits to living within NORCs have been observed and likely vary depending upon where the specific NORC exists on the NORC to healthy-NORC spectrum. Some NORC environments are healthier than others for seniors, because the NORC environment has characteristics associated with better health for seniors. Health benefits within healthy NORCs are higher where physical and social environments facilitate greater activity and promote feelings of well-being. Compared to the provision of additional medical or social services, healthy NORCs are a low-cost community-level approach to facilitating healthy aging. Municipal governments should pursue policies that stimulate and support the development of healthy NORCs.
authors.affiliation: Dept of Community Health and Epidemiology, Centre for Health Services and Policy Research, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada. masottip@post.queensu.ca
authors.forename: Paul J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Masotti
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Fick
authors.forename: Ana
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Johnson-Masotti
authors.forename: Stuart
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: MacLeod
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D004779:Environment Design; D015444:Exercise; D006694:Holistic Health; D006801:Humans; D009111:Local Government; D009043:Motor Activity; D011593:Psychology, Social; D011640:Public Policy; D011788:Quality of Life; D011998:Recreation; D012111:Residence Characteristics / Q000145:classification*; D012179:Retirement / Q000523:psychology*; D012449:Safety; D012931:Social Environment