The life course approach emphasises supporting good health and good living conditions for all age groups, and providing appropriate services at key life stages. Empowering people to take control of their own health, for example through building capacity, strengthening community engagement and supporting civic action, are also key elements of this theme.
Our initial work under this theme focuses on older people and health literacy.
We support the Healthy Ageing Strategic Partnership in the delivery of the Age Friendly City plan, in particular in relation to age friendly neighbourhoods. Our contribution to date has focused on developing a Walkability Assessment for Healthy Ageing tool. This work is linked to the Healthy urban environments theme, which aims to support the development of people oriented, healthy environments through sharing evidence, capacity building and exploring innovative practice.
Health Literacy
WHO defines health literacy as having knowledge, skills and confidence to take action to improve personal and community health. We are currently exploring work in this field, initially through collating and sharing evidence, including learning from other Healthy Cities. Our aim is to identify a programme that will contribute to raising levels of health literacy and empowering people to make informed decisions about their health.