Information Provision for an Age-Friendly Community

A community designed to ensure people age well must provide appropriate information in order to ensure seniors stay healthy and secure and are able to participate fully in their community. The aim of this research is to understand issues impacting on older people's capacity to access relevant information. This paper reports on early phases of action research designed to build ageing well initiatives at the local level in two cities in the south-east Queensland region of Australia. In both places, a range of stakeholders from seniors' groups, service providers and different levels of government formed working action groups to explore criteria for improved systems of information dissemination to seniors. Many seniors report that they are not well-informed and, presumably as a result, not well connected with their community. Our research identifies both a range of barriers for seniors to accessing information and also their preferences regarding information provision. Local solutions proposed to address these barriers and preferences are outlined. It is proposed that applying the principles of information provision elaborated in this research would begin to address some perennial challenges for older people and enhance their social inclusion.