Our area enacted an ordinance for the creation of an age-friendly city in Yeongdeungpo-gu. Through surveys, we create and run various programs which reflect the needs of older adults in the community. Recently, demand for digital capacity and increased digital literacy has increased due to COVID-19 and this has led to the establishment of a plan to create an IT support center for older adults. In the future, we will be planning to continue these kinds of efforts.

To make our area more age-friendly, we conducted a Focus Group Interview (FGI) recently with a group of men and women separately. Their opinions do not reflect all the opinions of all older adults in the area, however, participants were selected from various age groups and across a variety of locations to maximize the generalizability. This actually turned out to be a good reference for us.

Fortunately, we have received some positive comments about the satisfaction of the residences and the city’s administrative works such as convenient transportation systems, welfare center programs, and so forth. There were however some negative opinions expressed as well such as the existence of regional gaps, increased experiences of loneliness due to covid19, and a lack of job opportunities for older adults. Given the urgency of these issues increased focus will be given to solving these problems so that future complaints can be minimized and the city can continue to become more age-friendly.

If possible, we are planning to hold this kind of FGI regularly in addition to an age-friendliness survey so that more concrete opinions can be received directly from older adults.