Andrew Scharlach

Researchers continue to validate and discover more about a phenomenon that professionals in aging services have long noted: Most older people want to age in place in their own homes and communities. Now the Center for the Advanced Study of Aging Services at the University of California at Berkeley is bringing together academics, service providers, policymakers and community leaders for an innovative online conference to address ways to tranform this desire into reality.

“The primary purpose of the conference is to enable individuals and organizations to gain access to the knowledge that’s been gleaned from the research so far regarding aging-friendly communities,” says conference organizer Andrew Scharlach, an ASA member who is director of the center and who holds the position of Kleiner Professor at the School of Social Welfare at U.C. Berkeley.

“We’ll be looking at the characteristics of aging-friendly communities and at the factors that contribute to the development of policies, regulations and services that foster them,” Scharlach adds. “Participants will use this information to make social and physical environments more aging-friendly and to promote the vital involvement of older adults as community assets.”

The online conference, Creating Aging-Friendly Communities, will take place Feb. 20 to March 5, 2008. For more information or to register free of charge, visit www.agingfriendly.org.

Photo: Courtesy of the University of California at Berkeley

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