A Commentary on Blue Zones®: A Critical Review of Age-Friendly Environments in the 21st Century and Beyond.

Hannah R. Marston,Paula Alexandra Silva,Kelly Niles-Yokum

doi:10.3390/ijerph18020837

Abstract

This paper explores the intersection of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) concepts of age-friendly communities and The Blue Zones® checklists and how the potential of integrating the two frameworks for the development of a contemporary framework can address the current gaps in the literature as well as consider the inclusion of technology and environmental press. The commentary presented here sets out initial thoughts and explorations that have the potential to impact societies on a global scale and provides recommendations for a roadmap to consider new ways to think about the impact of health and wellbeing of older adults and their families. Additionally, this paper highlights both the strengths and the weaknesses of the aforementioned checklists and frameworks by examining the literature including the WHO age-friendly framework, the smart age-friendly ecosystem (SAfE) framework and the Blue Zones® checklists. We argue that gaps exist in the current literature and take a critical approach as a way to be inclusive of technology and the environments in which older adults live. This commentary contributes to the fields of gerontology, gerontechnology, anthropology, and geography, because we are proposing a roadmap which sets out the need for future work which requires multi- and interdisciplinary research to be conducted for the respective checklists to evolve.

Highlights

We have provided a critical review of the four Blue Zones® checklists and we have presented two age-friendly frameworks: 1. the World Health Organization (WHO) age-friendly framework [3] and 2. the smart age-friendly ecosystem (SAfE)
Marston and colleagues [68] propose implementing universal design principles [82] which, if combined with participatory action research [77] while instilling a bottom-up approach, has the potential to understand the needs, perceptions, expectations, requirements, and impacts of incorporating facets from existing age-friendly frameworks [3,48]. The aim of this commentary is to outline the initial footprint in a series of future work to bring areas which are limited or lacking in the existing Blue Zones® checklists to the forefront, while proposing areas for future research within the communities and societies
This is important when we are referring to technology, and globally, we are heading into the third decade of the 21st century

Summary

Introduction

There is a growing body of scholarly research [1,2] exploring how urban ageing impacts towns and communities in the Western world while taking an age-friendly approach based on the World Health Organization’s (WHO) framework published in 2007 [3].For nearly twenty years, scholarly research [1,2,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11] has illustrated how many towns and communities have been working towards ensuring their respective environments include age-friendly features.At the time of publication (2007), the age-friendly framework proposed by the WHO [3]provided a checklist that offered and afforded academics and policy-makers the opportunity to adapt key facets within their own environments. There is a growing body of scholarly research [1,2] exploring how urban ageing impacts towns and communities in the Western world while taking an age-friendly approach based on the World Health Organization’s (WHO) framework published in 2007 [3]. Scholarly research [1,2,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11] has illustrated how many towns and communities have been working towards ensuring their respective environments include age-friendly features. Provided a checklist that offered and afforded academics and policy-makers the opportunity to adapt key facets within their own environments. Research from the standpoint of gerontology and age-friendly cities and communities is limited to the domain of Blue Zones®.

Objectives

Findings

Discussion

Conclusion