Influence of promoting an “age-friendly cities” strategy on psychological capital and social engagement based on the scenario method

ABSTRACT

Holding large conferences and events usually encourages the corresponding government to upgrade the host city. For this process, incorporating additional costs to increase accessibility for the elderly is a feasible means for a city to develop in an age-friendly manner. Providing evidence-based reports to policy makers is conducive to implementing the policies of age-friendly cities. This study used the scenario method to simulate the effect of promoting the “age-friendly cities” strategy on residents’ psychological capital and social engagement (SE). We found that promoting the construction of age-friendly cities can significantly improve residents’ psychological capital and SE and that residents from all age groups can benefit. This paper provides an economical means to influence policymakers through evidence-based reports in promoting the development of age-friendly cities.

KEYWORDS:

• Age-friendly cities
• scenario
• psychological capital
• social engagement

Key points

•Different scenarios are examined to ascertain the studied policy’s effects.

•A procedure for adopting the scenario method to investigate the extent of public support is developed.

•Prospects for the application of the scenario method to health policies are discussed.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This paper was funded by the Fujian Provincial Social Science Foundation project “Empirical Research on Mental Health Promotion in the New Era of Healthy Aging” [No. FJ2021T009], Natural Science Foundation of Fujian Province of China [No. 2018J01129], and Scientific Research Grant of Fujian Province of China [No. Z0230104]. The sponsors of the project had no role in the study design, data collection, data analysis, or data interpretation.