The Greater Des Moines ‘Great Places for All Ages’ is a community-based effort designed to foster the creation of an Age-Friendly City and an Age-Friendly Region in Central Iowa, where public officials, elder service providers, community leaders, businesses and community members recognize the great diversity among the population aged 50 and above. The program was started on October 2011 by Dr. Yogesh Shah, MD, a geriatrician from Des Moines University, with strong support from the Mayor’s office and many other leaders from the community.

In an age-friendly community, policies, programs, services and infrastructure related to the physical and social environment are designed to enable older adults to live in security, enjoy good health and continue to participate in employment, civic, cultural and social life in a meaningful way. Following the neighbourhood ‘meet-up’ sessions, the project team created an organisational structure that includes three work groups in infrastructure, social wellness and health, in order to more efficiently manage the analysis of existing conditions in the greater Des Moines area and to compare findings to the WHO-AFC criteria. The age-friendly committee works very closely with other city and regional development plans like the healthiest state initiative, the blue zones, the wellness corridor of the capital crossroad, the dart 2035 and the tomorrow plan.