Dongdaemun-gu tried its best to lay a foundation to create an age-friendly city by enacting the ‘ordinance for creating an age-friendly city’ and implementing various activities and policies. In 2021, Dongdaemun-gu won the ‘2021 1st Senior Welfare Culture Grand Prize’ at the ‘9th Korea Challenge Festival’.

In Dongdaemun-gu, policies for older peoples’ social participation and employment are being promoted and programs for leisure activities are being operated. Also, there are established health management services for older people and various events to foster respect for older citizens are held. Dongdaemun-gu is also improving the quality of many public facilities so that older people can use them without any inconveniences.

In order to measure the age-friendliness of general citizens and older people, Dongdaemun-gu conducted a survey, 509 older people and 312 citizens participated for a total of 821. Participants’ age, gender, living conditions, and districts of residence were impartially selected to get fair results. Dongdaemun-gu sent out an official letter to the welfare centers and other places to assist in making the survey accessible. The questions of the survey included reference to the eight guidelines proposed by the WHO as well as standard demographic characteristics. The results of the survey can be found within the baseline assessment which can be found below.

Focus Group Interviews were also conducted. In total 20 people participated in this interview and they were divided into male and female groups by gender. So, each group consisted of 10 participants. During the interview, each group was asked about the age-friendliness in Dongdaemun-gu, their satisfaction with their living conditions, personal opinions toward the city’s projects and programs and so forth.