User centre design in living environments is the way into a healthy environment

The concept of age-friendly environments have been developed by WHO in 2007 to show that health and well-being is determined not only by our genes and personal characteristics but also by the physical and social environments in which we live our lives, thus embedding the concepts of age-friendly buildings, neighbourhoods, cities and communities. The concept makes use of a holistic approach to optimise people’s social and physical environments as well as defining supportive provisions (such as Information and Communication Technologies, healthcare and services) to improve independent living, equity and an active and healthy participation in society. Moreover, the United Nations stated with the Sustainable Development Goals (in particular, with Goal 3 related to health and wellbeing and Goal 11 focused on cities and human settlements) that sustainable age-friendly environments represent the baseline for guaranteeing a better future. The article is based on the work from NET4Age-Friendly and it shows that the living environments are important determinants of the trajectories of intrinsic capacity and functional ability over a person’s life course and into older age. Several domains of functional ability are particularly important in later life such as neighbourhood, build environments of living, city environment, socio-economic aspects. Interdisciplinary aspects related to the design and development of age-friendly living environments are still disparate and scattered in creating a vision for a sustainable city. The importance of living environments is explored in enhancing the functional ability of people from the perspective of user-centred inclusive design in age-friendly environments and communities. The knowledge base from initiatives such as SHAFE, European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing, Covenant on Demographic Change: towards an age-friendly Europe that much existing European policies shows that user-centred design approaches and practices have little connection to citizens’ needs (demand) and to the municipalities and entrepreneurs who are empowered to create new solutions for the future age-friendly environments including the digital technologies and tools of the future. We explore how user-centred inclusive design of age-friendly environments could change the communities and create more inclusion, accessibility, usability, and engagement around the living environment and how this has an impact on the functional ability of the people.