Adding life to years
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New Port Richey Community Assessment Survey for Older Adults


Summary

The City of New Port Richey recently participated in the Community Assessment Survey for Older Adults (CASOA), administered by National Research Center, Inc. This survey provided a statistically valid survey of the strengths and needs of older adults as reported by older adults themselves in communities across America. Used in conjunction with the CASOA Strategies and Resources Handbook, this report is intended to enable local governments, community-based organizations, the private sector and other community members to understand more thoroughly and predict more accurately the services and resources required to serve an aging population. With this report, New Port Richey stakeholders can shape public policy, educate the public and assist communities and organizations in their efforts to sustain a high quality of life for older adults.

The results of this exploration will provide useful information for planning and resource development as well as strengthen advocacy efforts and stakeholder engagement. The ultimate goal of the assessment is to create empowered communities that support vibrant older adult populations.

Key facts

Main target group: Older people in general

Sector(s): Education, Health, Housing, Information and communication, Labor, Long-term care, Other, Social protection, Transportation, Urban development

Other sector(s): Volunteer and civic engagement, inclusion

Desired outcome for older people:
Meet their basic needs

Other issues the Age-friendly practice aims to address:
  • Accessibility
  • Healthy behaviours (e.g. physical activity)
  • Inclusion
  • Participation

Contact details

Name: Chris Bornfleth

Email address: bornflethc@cityofnewportrichey.org


Age-friendly practice in detail (click to expand):

Engaging the wider community

Project lead: Local authorities

Others involved in the project:
  • Research institution

How collaboration worked: We with the City of New Port Richey are very lucky to have a supportive, and progressive City Council and City leadership. Our City Council and City leaders identified, voted on, and approved our participation and funding of the Community Assessment Survey for Older Adults. Our Parks and Recreation Department was then given the task of executing the CASOA, and now that we have received our findings, our various City departments will all work together to use the information gathered in the survey to improve our community for our older adult population.

Older people’s involvement: Older people were consulted during the planning process

Details on older people’s involvement: The survey was mailed in March 2019 to a random selection of 1,592 older adult households with residents 60 years of age and older in New Port Richey. Older adult households were contacted three times about participation in the survey. A total of 428 completed surveys were obtained, providing an overall response rate of 27%.

Moving forward

Has the impact of this age-friendly practice been analysed: No

Do you plan to evaluate your age-friendly practice? Yes

Feedback:
The results of this survey will provide us with useful information for planning and resource development, as well as strengthening our advocacy efforts and stakeholder engagement. The ultimate goal of this assessment is to create an empowered community in The City of New Port Richey that supports a vibrant older adult population.

Expansion plans:
The objectives of the CASOA are to: identify our community’s strengths in serving older adults, articulate the specific needs of older adults in our community, estimate contributions made by older adults in our community, and to determine the connection of older adults to our community. We plan on using the information gathered in the CASOA to improve and expand on our current Age-friendly practices.

Looking back

Reflections:
If we could do the CASOA again I would like to provide multiple avenues for collecting/gathering data. The survey had an overall response rate of just 27% and it would have been nice to have had better participation.

Challenges:
I would say that the greatest challenge faced was gaining the support of our community and community leaders, however this was not much of an issue due to our proactive community.