Age-Friendly Community Initiatives: Conceptual Issues and Key Questions

US public policy and programs for older adults traditionally have focused on the delivery of benefits to targeted individuals. Over the past decade, age-friendly community initiatives (AFCIs) have developed as a paradigm shift in contrast to this predominant focus. We describe three general categories of AFCIs, including community planning approaches, support-focused approaches, and cross-sector partnership approaches. Following from this conceptual overview, we posit four key policy-relevant questions with implications for the expansion of AFCIs, including what public policy supports are necessary for the implementation of AFCIs across diverse communities, how entities outside of aging can be engaged to collaborate, to what extent advocates for various models can work together, and how the outcomes of these initiatives can be rigorously evaluated.