SDOH Archives - LinkAGES Colorado

Age-Friendly Communities: An interactive discussion series

An interactive discussion series with community leaders, elected officials & planners. How can we design communities where all ages thrive?

About this event

Age-friendly communities are places where people want to grow up and grow older. They support and engage people of all ages- from our youngest neighbors to our eldest. Their design includes transportation, built environments, how communities share information– and much more.

They are only possible through intentional design and sustained collaboration between the governmental, philanthropic, nonprofit, and business sectors.

Please RSVP via Eventbrite.

Please Note: You must register for each discussion date separately.

Discussion 1: Bringing generations together through intentional age-friendly design September 22, 9:30 am-11:00 am MST

Dive into the key elements of an age-friendly community
Gain clarity around intergenerational design
Hear from experts about examples of communities of all sizes doing this work

Discussion 2: How to create and sustain a community where all people thrive: Tools and tactics for planners and elected officials October 20, 2:00 pm-3:30 pm MST

Learn methods and tools to facilitate planning and collaboration
Bring your age-friendly community challenges and questions to our experts
Hear from planners and officials who have co-designed age-friendly communities

About the Series

In this interactive discussion series, we need to hear from you- community members, local leaders, funders, planners, and elected officials.

We will look at age-friendly communities through the lens of intergenerational connections. What happens when we design programs and physical spaces that encourage meaningful connection across generations?

Presented in collaboration by LinkAGES and Lifelong Colorado Initiative.

Funded generously by the NextFifty Initiative.

What are age-friendly communities?

There are places to live– to hang your hat and park your car between the comings and goings of life– and then there are communities. “Good communities” are generally recognized as places where residents feel safe, connected, and confident. They are places that invite you in– to be involved in civic matters, to stroll through town for farmer’s markets, or to sit in the park for an afternoon. When you’re integrated into your community, you feel like you belong and that you matter to the people, policymakers, and planners that you share it with. Communities can be found in suburbs, rural areas, and cities. They can be as small as a square block or as large as a county. A good community is constantly evolving with the people who live in it and responds to the needs of those who frequent it for work and play as well.

Age-Friendly Communities

In recent history, there has been growing momentum in the United States to make our communities more inclusive– we are more mindful of ADA regulations, the need to disseminate information in multiple languages, and the growing desire for the diversity that makes every ecosystem thrive. As part of this momentum, we see cities, counties, and states committing to becoming “age-friendly.”

A community that is age-friendly is one in which all ages can thrive. It is a place where people want to grow up and grow older, throughout the entirety of life.

Many communities have a goal to become officially designated as age-friendly by AARP or the WHO (World Health Organization). How does a community reach this status? By focusing the efforts of its policymakers, elected officials, business owners, city planners, schools, architects, and community leaders on the eight domains of livability.

The Eight Domains of Livability

By looking at the following eight domains, community leaders can tackle what could be perceived as a monumental task: re-designing a place to be one in which ALL members can be active participants in the social, economic, and civic fabric of their community. Many of the domains overlap and when they do, it’s clear how intentionally designed communities cultivate spaces for meaningful intergenerational connections.

Outdoor Spaces & Buildings

Communities should offer public areas that welcome residents and visitors to gather both indoors and outside. Parks and green spaces should be located near to different neighborhoods, schools, and housing facilities. Within them, there should be places to sit comfortably and out of the sun. There should also be public restrooms that are safe and clean. City planners can integrate benches, areas to grill and picnic, play structures for various ages, and courts, fields, and waterways for athletes and spectators.

Sidewalks and paved roads should be well-maintained and buildings should be accessible to people with different physical and cognitive abilities. Inside, buildings should be brightly lit with clear signage that directs visitors to where they want to go or can receive assistance.

Transportation

Being able to easily move about a community is a central aspect of inclusiveness. Transportation options should include reliable and affordable public transit options, rideshares, and a pedestrian and bike-friendly community layout. This, of course, will vary greatly depending on what type of community one lives in.

For rural regions especially this is a difficult task to undertake, but for that reason it is arguably more essential to the well-being of all of our residents. If people with young families, teenagers without cars, and older adults cannot easily leave their homes to engage in social interactions, then we risk isolating many of our community members. At the same time, it’s important not to take for granted that a particular neighborhood offers reliable transportation just because it is located in a city. If there is no clear way to safely access the underground metro, for example, with a stroller or a wheelchair, then it isn’t age-friendly either.

Housing

In every community, there should be diverse living options that are safe, clean, and well-maintained. Diverse living options include different types of housing facilities like one-level houses, apartment buildings with play structures and elevators, and co-living arrangements.

For younger residents, consider priorities like proximity to schools and services as well as main roads. For older adults, consider visitability and availability of home-based services. Providing a way for residents to be simultaneously safely independent and consistently social is a good rule to follow.

Community & Health Services

Age-friendly community leaders consider every life stage as significant and prioritize equitable, accessible health care and community services for all their neighbors. From prenatal care to hospice, community members should be able to find healthcare providers and services that make their lives healthier, more comfortable, and full of dignity.

This can be especially challenging in rural areas with limited services or with services that are geographically distant. It is important that this domain is a top priority when re-thinking a community to be more age-friendly, and it is made easier when considering in concert with the transportation and housing domains.

Social Participation

The goal is not to create communities where people co-exist alongside one another, but where community members co-mingle and share their lives. When designing or re-thinking spaces, community leaders should consider how they can support activities that encourage opportunities for learning, social, cultural, and spiritual activities.

In age-inclusive outdoor spaces and indoor buildings, it is a natural progression to offer intergenerational activities like movies, concerts, and pickle-ball tournaments, for example. These activities should be affordable, safe, and accessible to all community members. Considering adolescents and teenagers in this domain is important, too. In these years, young people are developing their social identities. Providing a safe, fun place for them to gather and interact with other ages creates opportunities for healthy relationship building.

Respect & Social Inclusion

Age-friendly communities cultivate environments where all community members from diverse backgrounds feel valued, respected, and seen. Spaces and activities should encourage intergenerational connections that reinforce inclusivity and equity. When designing social activities, include multicultural experiences that are culturally sensitive and develop a deeper understanding and appreciation of the diverse backgrounds of neighbors.

Civic Participation & Employment

All people desire to feel valued and as if they matter. This deeper personal meaning can be found in job opportunities, volunteer positions, and civic participation. Communities can be thoughtful in the way they offer job support services, instill age-friendly practices within places of businesses, and design opportunities to integrate people of all ages in volunteer opportunities in schools, nonprofits, and community events.

Civic participation should be highly encouraged through accessibility, including campaign events, voter registration and education, and polling locations or mail-in voting options. Community events and decision making tables should also be accessible and consider physical ability, language, location, and times. Furthermore, all voices should be genuinely considered when policymakers and elected officials are making decisions that impact everyone.

Communication & Information

Building on the previous domain, community leaders should consider how different community members reliably receive information. Community members vary greatly in their comfort with technology, the people they trust, and their preferred methods of communication.

Information should be disseminated in a variety of ways including digitally, in print publications like newspapers, via local television channels, and through trusted community partners and advocates who are integrated within sub-communities. Distribute information in the dominant languages of residents and provide surveys and feedback opportunities in multiple languages as well. Also, provide ample time for these educational materials to be spread throughout the community so that everyone can receive, absorb, and participate.

Meaningful Intergenerational Connections

When designing age-friendly communities, we should always think about how to create opportunities for meaningful intergenerational connections. These occur when spaces like community centers are designed to encourage shared programming such as fitness, arts or gardening. Housing can be designed and marketed for a mix of ages and paired with programming such as a mentoring program matching older adults with school aged youth or an intergenerational garden and cooking club. Playgrounds and parks can be designed to encourage recreation for all ages with youth and adult appropriate equipment, trails, regularly spaced benches and restrooms. Recreational programming designed for people of all abilities and ages can be designed to encourage interaction between diverse ages can be instrumental in making intergenerational the norm.

Often, we see the discussion and focus of age-friendly communities through the lens of making communities more accessible and inclusive to older adults. But to truly accomplish our goals, we must imagine a community in its entirety and work towards inclusiveness for all of the people who live, play, and work there.

###

Here is your opportunity to help make your community more age-friendly! A significant part of building age-friendly communities is the constant feedback from community members of all ages.

Fill out this 4-question anonymous survey about your community!

Youth, Loneliness, and a Dangerous Mental Health Crisis

Loneliness is a felt experience. One that you can call to memory easily, in your body and heart. Like hunger or thirst, it is the feeling of being in one condition and wishing to be in another, it is a feeling of missing something so fundamental to our needs that we often take it for granted when we are sated. Loneliness can be social, caused by actually physically missing the presence of others; it can also be emotional, we can be surrounded by people and yet still feel alone.

Loneliness is a sweeping epidemic amongst our children, adolescents (those making the transition from childhood to adulthood), and young adults. According to a 2021 CDC survey, 61% of 18-25-year-olds reported feeling serious loneliness- “frequently” or “almost all of the time or all of the time” in the four weeks prior to the survey. The repercussions of feeling lonely include rising rates of anxiety, depression, and suicidality as well as morbidity and increased vigilance for social threats.

Loneliness is a lack of meaningful connection. Our young people are experiencing higher rates of loneliness and mental health crisis than ever before– and it is likely because they have no one to turn to.

Three Types of Loneliness

According to one school of thought, there are three types of loneliness that range from our day-to-day experience to our built environment and personal histories. See the grid below.

Type of Loneliness	Factors Associated
Situational	Unpleasant experiences, interpersonal conflicts, accidents, disasters, etc.
Developmental	Perceived personal inadequacies, developmental deficits, significant separations, poverty, living arrangements, physical and psychological health, etc.
Internal	Personality, feeling of autonomy and control, mental distress, low self-esteem, feeling guilty or ashamed, poor coping strategies, etc.

Adolescents and young adults are dynamic human beings in environments largely outside of their own control. They are developing physiologically and psychologically, at times rapidly and with little awareness or understanding. They’re learning who they are and how to be in the world, developing their interpersonal skills in a number of different environments and communities including in school, at home, on social media, and in extracurricular activities. With so many variables, there is an interplay of diverse factors that can cause loneliness in so many young people. In the same vein, whether loneliness causes mental illness or vice-versa is not so easy to pull apart.

Social Determinants of Health (SDOH)

Loneliness is a single factor that can impact youth mental health. When we look at the Social Determinants of Health (SDOH), it is easy to place loneliness within the single category of Social and Community Context. But loneliness and mental health are far more complex than that. SDOH are the conditions in which people are born, live, work, play, and age. These conditions affect a wide range of health and quality-of-life risks and outcomes. They’re categorized into the five domains below.

SDOH include things like:

Safe housing and access to green spaces like parks
Racism, discrimination and prejudice based on ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, etc.
Violence, neglect, and abuse
School environment, educational quality, opportunities to learn
Household income, material wealth
Access to healthy foods and clean water
Language and literacy skills

Children, adolescents, and young people (as well as adults) face considerable inequities across SDOH which leads to physical and mental health disparities. As you can see, the SDOH are the same factors that impact loneliness.

The loneliest generation in history: Gen Z

Generation Z (Gen Z), people born between 1997-2012, are more likely to say they were lonely in childhood than any other generation before them. Compared to only 24% of Baby Boomers, 56% of Gen Zers felt lonely at least once or twice per month during childhood, according to The State of Mental Health in America (2022). Loneliness, depression, anxiety, and suicidality- amongst other mental health challenges- in children, adolescents, and young adults were increasing quickly in the decade prior to the pandemic. In 2018, suicide was the leading cause of death for 10-24-year-olds.

The COVID-19 pandemic altered the reality of all young people in the United States and across the world. Because of the vast and intersectional inequities across the SDOH, some children were more negatively impacted than others by the pandemic’s forced social distancing requirements, sickness, and the immense loss of life. During the pandemic, “44% of high school students reported that, in the previous 12 months, they felt sad or hopeless almost every day for at least two weeks in a row,” according to the Pew Center for Research.

More than 140,000 children in the US lost a primary and/or secondary caregiver due to COVID-19, with youth of color disproportionately impacted. This statistic is cited in the AAP-AACAP-CHA Declaration of National Emergency in Child and Adolescent Mental Health released by American Academy of Pediatrics, American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Children’s Hospital Association, respectively.

In their short lifetimes, Gen Z has faced a global pandemic, climate crisis, a politically and socially divided country, and so much more. Adding the cultural and individual experiences of racism, prejudism, and inequity makes their load a heavy one to bear- and they’re doing so alone.

"This worsening crisis in child and adolescent mental health is inextricably tied to the stress brought on by COVID-19 and the ongoing struggle for racial justice and represents an acceleration of trends observed prior to 2020.”

AAP-AACAP-CHA Declaration of National Emergency in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Tweet

Loneliness has a long-term impact

A study published in 2013 examined the consequences of loneliness on children, adolescents, and young people. At that time, the researchers found that as many as 80% of youth under 18-years-old reported being lonely at least sometimes. They found that the effects of loneliness accrue over time. Not only that, but multiple studies produced evidence that loneliness in youth was correlated to a 300% higher likelihood of developing depression in the future and that this impact could last for years, (ibid). These studies pointed to the possibility that it is actually the duration of loneliness, rather than the intensity of it, that increases risk of later depression.

The converse of this, worth noting in another study, is that only 7% of adults in the US who were never lonely in their childhood report that they often feel lonely or isolated today, (American National Family Life Survey December 2021).

The youth mental health crisis is fatal

This year, 2022, firearms became the most likely way that a child, age 1-19-years-old, will die in the United States of America. 65% of those children’s deaths will be homicides and 35% of those children’s deaths will be categorized as suicide. After motor vehicle accidents, drug overdoses and poisoning follow as the leading causes of death amongst our young people. (It’s important to note that some poisonings and drug doses are accidental).

“Most commonly what makes the news is these horrific mass shootings, but they are a small aspect of the overall problem. The smallest portion are the mass shootings. … it’s these daily deaths that are occurring making up the totality of what we are seeing,” Patrick Carter, co-author of a research letter in the New England Journal of Medicine and co-director of the University of Michigan’s Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention, told NPR in April 2022.

Still, the US is grappling with a school shooting crisis. More than 311,000 children have experienced gun violence at school since Columbine according to research done by the Washington Post.

The Violence Project, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research center, is dedicated to reducing violence in society through the use of data and analysis to improve policy and practice. Psychologist Dr. Jillian Peterson and sociologist Dr. James Densley co-founded the project; they are best known for their work on gun violence prevention and mass shootings, funded by the National Institute of Justice.

Over 80% of mass shooters were in a noticeable crisis prior to their shooting, most often in the months and years beforehand, and 39.5% were demonstrating isolation. In an analysis of 134 school shootings or attempted school shootings, 80% of shooters were suicidal prior to the shooting.

“There’s this really consistent pathway. Early childhood trauma seems to be the foundation, whether violence in the home, sexual assault, parental suicides, extreme bullying. Then you see the build toward hopelessness, despair, isolation, self-loathing, oftentimes rejection from peers. That turns into a really identifiable crisis point where they’re acting differently. Sometimes they have previous suicide attempts."

Dr. Jillian Peterson , The Violence Project via Politico Tweet

What this data suggests is that school shootings (which are also suicides) performed by young people could have been prevented if someone close to them had taken an interest in the mental health crisis that they were experiencing.

Strategies to help our kids are rooted in connection

Children, adolescents, and young adults are exposed to significant stressors and trauma in modern day society. We are not invalidating their experiences, and the truth is that children have faced war, famine, and family struggles throughout history. It is the loneliness and mental health crisis that they are experiencing so disproportionately compared to previous generations. And loneliness is a lack of meaningful connections.

Having a trusted older adult who young people can turn to about serious matters is a major protective factor for youth mental health across all demographics and identities.

A veteran sits with two teenage girls, telling stories — “(Veteran’s name) and I have been regularly communicating and it has been great. We email, text, and even send each other letters. I sent him a mask my mom and I made in the mail and he sent me his book. I do hope I can see him again because we have built a really great connection.” Teenage participant in Wish of a Lifetime (from AARP) Passage of Heroes program. It paired Golden High School students with Veterans in Jefferson County.

Where can these adults be found? Who is responsible for our youth? All of us.

Having two or more mentors helps children, adolescents, and young adults:

Learn how to regulate their emotions
Create clear expectations for values and behavior
Develop healthy coping skills
Foster self-esteem
Support development of interests and skills
Develop positive norms for themselves and those around them
Maintain physical and psychological safety.

The US Surgeon General’s Advisory in November 2021 also shared a list of recommendations for families, schools, healthcare institutions, community organizations, funders, media, and society at large. Read the Advisory and strategies here.

Topline recommendations include:

Recognize that mental health is an essential part of overall health.
Empower youth and their families to recognize, manage, and learn from difficult emotions.
Ensure that every child has access to high-quality, affordable, and culturally competent mental health care.
Support the mental health of children and youth in educational, community, and childcare settings. And expand and support the early childhood and education workforce.
Address the economic and social barriers that contribute to poor mental health for young people, families, and caregivers.
Increase timely data collection and research to identify and respond to youth mental health needs more rapidly

Society has finally woken up to the reality that our children, adolescents, and young people are suffering and that it is our responsibility to do something about it. We know the factors and determinants that are impacting youth loneliness and mental illness are intersectional, and so our response should be as well. To help our kids, we need to create change within those areas especially for those kids who are most vulnerable. And it will take a village.

If you or someone you know may be considering suicide, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 (en español: 1-888-628-9454; deaf and hard of hearing: 1-800-799-4889) or the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741.

###

LinkAGES Colorado creates opportunities for meaningful intergenerational connections between youth and older adults (50-years and older). By bringing generations together over shared activities and storytelling, we cultivate spaces that allow meaningful interactions and foster mental health amongst all participants. These intergenerational programs can occur in school settings, neighborhoods, and in communities. We host photography classes, music therapy classes, and cultural programs. Learn more about the benefits for both older adults and young people in our article Intergenerational connections: A solution to isolation and loneliness.

Want to get involved? Contact us for updates!