Australians are ageing at an unprecedented rate. As people get older, frailty and increased use of health resources pose a significant challenge to already strained health services.
It is vital to keep ageing populations healthy to not only reduce this dependence on services but also to promote their wellbeing, independence, and participation in society. This is highlighted by the UN declaring 2021-2030 to be the “Decade of Healthy Ageing”, in which building age-friendly environments is a key priority.
This offers significant economic and social benefits for communities at large, as costs associated with the health of ageing populations are reduced and older individuals can continue contributing to society through employment and other activities, such as childminding.
As the World Health Organisation points out, our environment plays an important role in improving or impairing our health. This is particularly true for elderly populations.
Safe, serviced, walkable areas increase physical activity amongst older residents, while neighbourhoods with plenty of greenspaces decrease frailty. Additionally, areas of low socioeconomic status and remoteness have each been associated with higher mortality rates.
However, when it comes to identifying how a local area might impact an ageing person’s health, a knowledge gap exists.
In Australia, there is currently no spatial index that can measure the age-friendliness of local areas using socio-economic, geographic access, and physical environment indicators. This makes it harder to identify vulnerable ageing communities and means resources and funding cannot be allocated to areas where they are needed most.
A data-driven solution
A new composite spatial index has been created to address this and researchers in South Australia have been testing its efficacy.
A study by Danielle Taylor, Olga Theou, Helen Barrie, Jarrod Lange, Suzanne Edwards, David Wilson, and Renuka Visvanathan titled, ‘The Healthy Ageing/Vulnerable Environment (HAVEN) Index: Measuring neighbourhood age-friendliness’, evaluated the composite spatial HAVEN Index’s ability to identify healthy and vulnerable areas for ageing populations by applying it to the state of South Australia, in which 18% of the 1.7 million population are aged 65 years or over.
The HAVEN Index, as it combines socio-economic and environmental indicators, is uniquely placed to distinguish the differentiating factors between healthy and vulnerable ageing populations.
As a tool, it is novel in its ability to not only assess the physical, social, economic, and environmental conditions of local areas and determine whether they promote or threaten the health of ageing populations but also to pinpoint where vulnerabilities lie so that they can be addressed in policy and planning for age-friendly communities, in line with the UN’s “Decade of Healthy Ageing”.
Using six socioeconomic and environmental indicators including education, income and employment, health and housing, social connectedness, geographic access, and physical environment, this study examined the age-friendliness of neighbourhoods across South Australia.
Data accessed via AURIN was used to determine the location of hospital and GP services in each area. This contributed to understanding how access to services impacts ageing populations’ ability to remain living in their local area.
Proximity to green and blue public open spaces was also assessed using data collected through AURIN and other sources. Green spaces are crucial in promoting physical activity, social connectedness, and reducing frailty in ageing populations and thus are an important indicator in establishing an area’s age-friendliness.
This area-specific data, accessed via AURIN, was crucial in determining an area’s positive or negative impact on the health of its ageing residents.
The result
The study found that mortality rates and ED presentations amongst ageing populations were higher in vulnerable areas.
Comparisons between the HAVEN Index and other, widely-used models found that the HAVEN Index performs favourably and goes further in providing additional, specific information that can be transformative in reducing social inequity.
The more knowledge policy makers and planners can have about the impact of neighbourhood environments on healthy ageing, the more they can respond with needs-based infrastructure that supports and improves the wellbeing of older populations.
The success and potential of the HAVEN Index, as outlined by this study, is evident in the fact it is now being used by the South Australian Department of Health’s Office for Ageing Well. The Index and its holistic, data-driven approach to public health can meaningfully contribute to the United Nations’ sustainable development goal of “leaving no one behind.”
AURIN is delighted to have contributed important data sets to this study that underscores the crucial impact our surroundings can have on our long-term health and wellbeing.
