title: engAGE in Community: Using Mixed Methods to Mobilize Older People to Elucidate the Age-Friendly Attributes of Urban and Rural Places.
abstract: The growing numbers of older adults in the United States will have a significant impact on community resources, which will affect the ability of residents to live and thrive in their local community regardless of age. For this study, we applied explanatory sequential mixed methods and community-based participatory research (CBPR) to discover how attributes of the physical, social, and service environments determine residents' perceptions of community age-friendliness and conditions for aging-in-place. A population survey measuring county residents' (n = 387) perceptions and importance of community resources that support community livability are explained by thematic results of the CBPR, that is, emergent proximal and distal age-friendly factors. Our qualitative approach engaged local people (n = 237) in participatory processes to study and share perceptions of environmental attributes in six communities in one Oregon county. Findings are integrated to explain similarities and differences in older residents' lived experience of rural and urban settings with regard to age-friendly foci.
authors.affiliation: Oregon State University, Corvallis, USA deborah.john@oregonstate.edu.
authors.forename: Deborah H
authors.initials: DH
authors.lastname: John
authors.affiliation: Oregon State University, Corvallis, USA.
authors.forename: Katherine
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Gunter
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D003153:Community Health Services; D055812:Community-Based Participatory Research; D004779:Environment Design; D005260:Female; D062305:Geographic Mapping; D006798:Housing; D006801:Humans; D057187:Independent Living; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009922:Oregon; D010465:Perception; D010781:Photography; D012111:Residence Characteristics; D012424:Rural Population; D012931:Social Environment; D012944:Social Support; D012946:Social Welfare; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014505:Urban Population; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: aging-in-place; cooperative extension; livability; photo mapping; rural