Ecological Approaches to an Age-Friendly Portland and Multnomah County

Abstract

Researchers at Portland State University's Institute on Aging (IOA) conducted Portland's age-friendly baseline assessment as part of the original 2006–2007 World Health Organization's (WHO) Global Age-Friendly Cities Project. This article describes the ongoing Portland and Multnomah County age-friendly initiatives, using Menec et al.'s (2011 Menec, V. H., Means, R., Keating, N., Parkhurst, G., & Eales, J. (2011). Conceptualizing age-friendly communities. Canadian Journal on Aging, 30(3), 479–493.[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] [Google Scholar]) ecological framework to highlight the interplay between people and environments (i.e., physical, social, and service environments). An overview is provided of Portland's age-friendly community-based research, the evolution and role of the Advisory Council, as well as recent housing policies that have been developed through university-community partnerships.