Age-friendly communities during the time of COVID-19: a model for rapid community response

Abstract

With the COVID-19 epidemic disproportionately impacting older adults, cities across the United States (U.S.) and the world scrambled to meet the needs of their older residents. Members of the World Health Organization's Age-Friendly Communities (AFCs) network rely on cross-system community collaborations and resident voices to create age-friendly social, built, and service environments. These key elements of AFCs place them in a unique position to quickly identify needs of older residents, launch short-term targeted interventions, and support integration of new programs into existing systems for post-crisis sustainability. This essay discusses how one age-friendly community applied key tenets of the Centers for Disease Control's rapid response team model to meet the immediate, short-term needs of older residents for social connection, food, personal protective equipment (PPE), emergency preparedness, and technology utilization. Sustainability of the rapid response interventions was supported through the relationships and structures created by the AFC.