title: Making rural and remote communities more age-friendly: experts' perspectives on issues, challenges, and priorities.
abstract: With the growing interest worldwide in making communities more age-friendly, it is becoming increasingly important to understand the factors that help or hinder communities in attaining this goal. In this article, we focus on rural and remote communities and present perspectives of 42 experts in the areas of aging, rural and remote issues, and policy who participated in a consensus conference on age-friendly rural and remote communities. Discussions highlighted that strengths in rural and remote communities, such as easy access to local leaders and existing partnerships, can help to further age-friendly goals; however, addressing major challenges, such as lack of infrastructure and limited availability of social and health services, requires regional or national government buy-in and funding opportunities. Age-friendly work in rural and remote communities is, therefore, ideally embedded in larger age-friendly initiatives and supported by regional or national policies, programs, and funding sources.
authors: a Professor, Department of Community Health Sciences , University of Manitoba , Winnipeg , Manitoba , Canada.
authors: Verena
authors: V
authors: Menec
authors: Sheri
authors: S
authors: Bell
authors: Sheila
authors: S
authors: Novek
authors: Gulnara A
authors: GA
authors: Minnigaleeva
authors: Ernesto
authors: E
authors: Morales
authors: Titus
authors: T
authors: Ouma
authors: Jose F
authors: JF
authors: Parodi
authors: Rachel
authors: R
authors: Winterton
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging; D006297:Health Services Accessibility; D006801:Humans; D057187:Independent Living; D012111:Residence Characteristics; D012424:Rural Population
keywords: age-friendliness; age-friendly communities; community development; public policy; remote communities; rural communities