What people value is different between individuals and changes over the course of people’s lives. Although research is limited, and recognizing the great diversity of capacity and circumstance in older adults, some of the things older people identify as important include: having a role or identity; relationships; the possibility of enjoyment; autonomy; security; and the potential for personal growth.

Environments have a crucial role in enabling people to experience older age in a positive way. In 2015 the World Health Organization (WHO) set out a new framework for action built around the new concept of functional ability. This concept focuses on the role of environments in both building and maintaining our physical and mental capacities as well as enabling us, at any given level of capacity, to do the things that we value. Several domains of functional ability are crucial to achieve this end. These are the abilities to:

• move around;
• build and maintain relationships;
• meet one’s own basic needs;
• learn, grow and make decisions; and
• contribute.

Workshop 1 will:

• explore these abilities, how they relate to each other and to WHO’s original eight age-friendly city domain (topics), and the implications for developing age-friendly cities and communities with a specific focus on inequities.
• be the foundation session for workshops 2 and 3 held on the following days the focus will be on how to engage, plan and measure success.