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LOCALCARE – strategic municipal leadership for active aging and care in the local community
Category
Research
Participants
Michael Asgaard Andersen og Rebecka Söderberg
Time
2025-2029
LOCALCARE is a Nordic research collaboration on integrating age-friendly housing and neighbourhoods with municipal and community-based health and social care. Running from 2025 to 2029 and coordinated by Nordregio, it brings together researchers from Sweden, Norway and Denmark.
Michael Asgaard Andersen leads one of four work packages (2026-2028). It examines which elements in age-friendly housing projects support care, and what they mean for residents and practitioners.
The project develops knowledge and new models of cooperation to prepare municipalities for a welfare system in which more care moves from institutions into the home and the local community.
The Nordic countries face growing welfare pressures as their populations age. Health authorities in Sweden, Norway and Denmark increasingly expect municipalities to plan for home-based care, local community care and age-friendly place-making. The knowledge gap is the link between housing environments (including age-friendly ones) and the provision of health and social care services at the municipal and community level. Many homes are not designed for care and rehabilitation, and without adaptation the shift to home-based care risks leaving some older people in unsafe conditions.
Across the three countries, LOCALCARE studies how different age-friendly housing environments intersect with health and social care services. An interdisciplinary team maps age-friendly housing, studies selected cases and co-develops indicators with stakeholders for how different housing types contribute to effective care. The project further develops the Place Standard Tool into an “Age-friendly Local Community Compass”. Theoretically, the work draws on a salutogenic view of health and the WHO framework for age-friendly environments.
Among its outputs, the project delivers an Age-friendly Local Community Compass, comparative Nordic analyses and research reports that can support municipalities in their strategic work towards age-friendly local communities.
