SOCIAL INNOVATIONS IN ACTIVE AND HEALTHY AGEING

摘要

This symposium reports and discusses the findings of an ambitious European project that developed and tested, as well as surveyed and catalogued, social innovations (SIs) aimed at improving the quality of life and well-being of older people. In particular INNOVAGE aimed to make a major contribution to the European goal of extending healthy life years (HLY). The project, which concluded in 2015, was based in seven countries. The four specific Sis that it developed and tested were in the fields of housing, carers, obesity and long-term care. It also created a unique database of 150 exemplars of Sis designed to improve later life well-being. The major objectives of this symposium are first, to report the outcomes of two of the four SIs developed by INNOVAGE (in the fields of housing and support for carers). In particular these papers will examine the major challenge of how to scale-up successful innovations and ensure their sustainability. Second, we focus on the concept of SI and how it was defined and classified in practice. Third the symposium will present the method developed to explore the potential impact of SIs on well-being. Symposium participants will take part in an evidence-based discussion about the meaning and applications of SI and examine its potential role in extending healthy life years. They will also hear about the pit-falls of SI development and scaling-up and take away detailed information on both specific initiatives and generalisable methods.